[No.  61 — Second  Series — 3000] 


Indian  Rights  Association, 

1305  Arch  Street, 
Philadelphia,  Pa.,  May  12,  1902. 


The  Action  of  the  Interior  Department  in  Forcing 
the  Standing  Rock  Indians  to  Lease  Their 
Lands  to  Cattle  Syndicates. 


About  the  first  of  the  year  the  Indian  Rights  Association  learned  of  the 
intention  of  the  Interior  Department  to  lease  to  cattle  syndicates  nearly 
two-thirds  of  the  Standing  Rock  Indian  Reservation,  in  North  and  South 
Dakota,  for  grazing  purposes.  The  evidence  herewith  submitted  from  well- 
informed  and  entirely  trustworthy  sources  shows  that  such  action  was  con¬ 
trary  to  the  wishes  of  these  Indians.  It  will  be,  in  our  opinion,  detrimental 
to  their  best  interests.  It  was  also  contended  that  the  terms  of  the  proposed 
leases  were  in  violation  of  an  explicit  agreement  made  with  these  Indians  by 
representatives  of  the  Indian  Office.  The  advertisement  proposing  to  lease 
the  lands  was  dated  December  23,  1901,  and  it  announced  that  bids  would 
be  received  up  to  January  10,  1902.  This  fact  alone  was  enough  to  excite 
suspicion,  since  prospective  lessees  were  only  allowed  seventeen  days  in  which 
to  file  bids.  How  extensively  this  intention  of  the  Department  was  adver¬ 
tised  we  are  unable  to  say. 

For  years  the  Government  has  endeavored  to  induce  the  Indians  to  be¬ 
come  self-supporting,  and  has  encouraged  them  in  various  ways  to  take  an 
active  interest  in  farming  and  stock-raising;  and  in  furtherance  of  this  plan 
the  rations  issued  were  reduced  to  the  lowest  limit  advisable.  The  Indians 
recognized  the  necessity  of  increased  effort  in  these  directions,  and  many  of 
them  settled  on  the  desirable  tracts  along  the  streams.  The  present  leases 
are,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  a  complete  reversal  of  the  Government’s  policy.  It 
is  distinctly  a  backward  step  and  its  effect  must  of  necessity  be  pernicious. 
To  surround  them  now  with  cattle  will  unquestionably  discourage  the  Indians 
and  lessen  the  opportunities  heretofore  held  out  to  them.  It  is  a  well-known 
saying  wherever  such  leases  obtain,  that  the  Indians’  cows  never  have  calves, 
whereas  the  white  man’s  always  have  twins.  The  meaning  is  obvious.  Such 
a  backward  step  will  almost  inevitably  lead  to  a  dwindling  away  of  the  small 
herds  of  the  Indians  and  soon  force  them  to  depend  altogether  on  the  Gov¬ 
ernment  for  support. 


2 


no  •  U  t 

While  it  is  true  the  Commissioner  held  a  nominal  agreement  with  the  re¬ 
quisite  number  of  signatures  attached,  authorizing  the  lease,  he  ignored  the 
most  important  provision — namely,  the  oral  understanding,  which  expressly 
stipulated  that  the  Indians  were  to  designate  the  tracts  of  land  to  be  leased. 
As  the  Indians  selected  no  lands,  in  accordance  with  this  oral  agreement  it 
would  seem  that  the  action  of  the  Department  was  illegal.  Moreover,  the 
agreement  referred  to  was  virtually  forced  on  the  Indians  by  a  threat  of  the 
Department  to  inaugurate  the  “permit  system”  if  they  refused  to  yield  to 
the  pressure  that  was  put  upon  them. 

In  view  of  the  protests  received  from  Indians  and  others  familiar  with 
local  conditions,  the  Association,  on  January  9,  1902,  addressed  the  following 
letter  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior,  Hon.  E.  A.  Hitchcock: 


“The  Indian  Rights  Association  has  just  learned  that  on  the  10th  instant 
bids  are  to  be  received  for  the  lease  of  far  the  largest  part  of  the  lands  on  the 
Standing  Rock  Agency,  in  North  and  South  Dakota,  of  the  Sioux  nation. 
We  respectfully  and  most  earnestly  ask  you  to  order  that  all  proceedings  in 
the  matter  shall  cease  for  the  present,  for  the  following  reasons: 

“  1.  There  are  strong  doubts  whether  such  a  lease,  under  existing  condi¬ 
tions,  is  not  a  violation  of  the  treaty  obligations  of  the  United  States  to  these 
Indians. 

“2.  We  are  informed  that  certain  members  of  the  tribe  desire  individual 
allotments  out  of  these  lands.  Unless  such  tracts  are  exempt  from  the  lease, 
— and  there  seems  to  have  been  no  notice  that  such  exemption  would  be  made, 
— the  lease  will  violate  the  provisions  of  the  General  Allotment  Law.  See 
Act  amending  it,  approved  February  28,  1891. 

“3.  A  number  of  these  Indians  have  established  themselves  on  individual 
holdings  and  are  cultivating  small  farms  on  the  borders  of  the  land  proposed 
to  be  leased  as  a  cattle  range.  If  this  is  done  these  farms  will  be  overrun  and 
destroyed  by  the  cattle  on  the  range,  for  the  farms  are  unfenced,  the  Indians 
cannot  fence  them,  and  there  is  no  obligation  on  the  lessees  to  fence  their 
cattle  range.  So  the  homes  of  a  number  of  Indians,  who  have  tried,  with 
some  success,  to  become  self-supporting,  will  be  broken  up,  and  they  will  be 
driven  back,  to  become  mere  paupers  supported  by  the  United  States. 

“A  reasonable  delay  can  prejudice  no  one,  and  will  allow  time  to  procure 
fuller  information.  We  believe  that  if  such  delay  be  granted,  we  can  produce 
evidence  that  will  fully  sustain  our  allegations,  and  that  a  great  wrong  and 
injury  to  these  Indians  will  be  averted. 

“  Respectfully, 

“Philip  C.  Garrett, 

“  President  of  the  Indian  Rights  Association. 

“  P.  S.  The  number  of  Indian  families  established  on  the  land  which  it  is 
proposed  to  lease  is  613.” 


The  only  direct  reply  received  to  this  communication  was  a  note  from 
the  Secretary,  stating  that  it  had  been  referred  to  the  Commissioner  of 
Indian  Affairs.  The  Secretary,  however,  evidently  felt  called  on  to  defend 
his  action,  and  an  apparently  authoritative  statement  concerning  his  views 
on  the  matter  appeared  in  the  Washington  “Star,”  of  January  14th,  as  fol¬ 
lows: 


“  Secretary  Hitchcock  laid  before  the  President  and  the  Cabinet  the  action 
of  the  Department  of  the  Interior  in  leasing  about  one  million  acres  of  surplus 
grazing  lands  belonging  to  the  Sioux  Indians  of  the  Standing  Rock  Reserva¬ 
tion,  in  the  Dakotas,  and  the  objections  that  have  been  raised  to  this  course 
by  the  Indian  Rights  Association,  the  Indian  Citizenship  Association,  Mis¬ 
sionary  Boards,  and  others.  Secretary  Hitchcock  explains  the  lease  of  the 
lands,  saying  that  for  years  these  lands  had  been  overrun  with  cattle  brought 


HAR  1  0  2000 


in  by  ‘  squaw  ’  men  and  others  for  grazing,  and  that  the  Indian  tribe  has  not 
received  a  penny  of  benefit  from  this.  It  was  decided  by  Commissioner 
Jones  and  the  Interior  Department  to  set  aside  the  surplus  lands  and  lease 
them  to  competent  cattle  men  at  so  much  a  year. 

“The  bids  for  the  lands  were  opened  the  other  day,  and  as  a  result  the  In¬ 
dians  will  receive  each  year  hereafter  from  $35,000  to  $40,000  that  they  never 
knew  they  were  entitled  to  before.  The  cattlemen  are  bonded  to  properly 
carry  out  the  lease.  Among  the  objections  raised  are  those  that  scattered  all 
over  the  land  to  be  leased  are  the  homes  of  many  Indian  families,  who  are 
trying  to  become  self-supporting,  and  that  their  places  would  be  overrun  by 
the  cattle  of  the  lessees;  that  certain  members  of  the  tribe  desire  individual 
allotments  of  the  land;  that  an  Indian  Mission  will  be  included  in  the  lands 
to  be  leased. 

“Secretary  Hitchcock  stated  to  the  CabineCthat  the  Indians  are  not  op¬ 
posed  to  leasing  which  is  authorized  by  law;  that  a  large  majority  of  the 
tribe  are  in  favor  of  it  and  have  signed  the  tribal  authority  to  this  effect ;  that 
it  is  not  in  conflict  with  treaty  provisions;  that  the  ranges  will  not  be  over¬ 
stocked;  that  only  about  fifty  families  resided  in  the  proposed  leased  dis¬ 
trict,  whose  rights  will  be  fully  protected;  that  it  will  not  denude  the  reser¬ 
vation  of  timber  for  the  lessees  to  secure  posts  for  fencing;  that  all  farms, 
gardens,  and  individual  holdings  of  the  Indians  will  be  fully  protected;  that 
the  mission  near  Bullhead  sub-station  is  to  be  excluded  from  the  leased 
district ;  that  the  proposed  district  will  be  fenced  so  as  to  prevent  trespass- 
mg. 


On  learning  of  the  determination  of  the  Indian  Office  to  accept  the  bids 
of  two  parties,  a  delegation  of  the  Standing  Rock  Indians,  consisting  of  Stand¬ 
ing  Soldier,  Wah-koo-te-ma-nie  (alias  Shoots  Walking),  Mad  Bear,  Thunder 
Hawk,  Rushing  Eagle,  Red  Tomahawk,  and  Louis  Primeau  (interpreter) — 
the  most  representative  and  progressive  men  of  the  tribe — went  to  Washing¬ 
ton  in  the  hope  of  either  preventing  the  leases  from  being  effected  or  having 
them  so  modified  as  to  make  their  provisions  less  objectionable.  The  delega¬ 
tion  was  not  received  with  the  utmost  cordiality  by  the  Interior  Department 
officials,  but  was  ignored,  rebuffed,  and  treated  with  scant  consideration  by 
those  who  were  ostensibly  their  “guardians.”  The  remark  of  an  Inspector 
of  the  Department  to  the  Agent  of  the  Association,  to  the  effect  that  ‘‘it  did 
not  make  any  difference  what  the  Indians  wanted,  they  must  make  those 
leases,”  exhibited  a  remarkable  contempt  of  anything  like  justice,  and  pre¬ 
sumably  reflected  the  sentiment  of  his  superiors,  and  a  determination  to  gain 
the  desired  end  regardless  of  ways  or  means. 

While  in  Washington  the  Indians  prepared  a  statement  setting  forth  their 
understanding  of  the  matter  and  their  reasons  for  opposing  the  leases.  This 
was  signed  by  the  entire  delegation  and  presented  to  the  President  and 
Secretary  of  the  Interior.  It  reads  : 


“The  members  of  the  Sioux  bands  of  Indians  residing  within  the  Stand¬ 
ing  Rock  Reservation,  in  North  and  South  Dakota,  represented  by  their 
chosen  delegates,  respectfully  address  this  petition  to  you.  It  has  been  repre¬ 
sented  that  a  majority  of  our  people  have  agreed  to  lease  all  our  unoccupied 
lands  without  designating  the  boundaries  thereof,  and  that  such  agreement 
in  writing  is  now  held  by  the  Honorable  Secretary  of  the  Interior. 

“We  hereby  deny  that  such  alleged  authority  has  been  given  by  us,  and 
there  is  full  and  abundant  evidence  to  prove  this  assertion.  The  Indian 
Office  had  long  been  urging  us  to  lease  our  lands  for  grazing,  and,  our  tribe  not 
consenting,  the  Honorable  Commissioner  of  Indain  Affairs  directed  that  the 
‘permit  system’  of  grazing  be  fully  inaugurated  by  the  first  of  the  present 
month,  and  this  was  without  our  consent  also,  and  we  were  not  consulted  in 
the  matter  at  all. 


4 


“Fearing  that  the  ‘  permit  system  ’  would  be  worse  for  us  than  the  regular 
mode  of  leasing,  we  then  concluded  to  agree  to  the  latter  plan.  A  council 
was  called,  and  the  whole  subject  talked  over  with  our  Government  agent. 
We  desired  a  full  and  definite  agreement  drawn  up  in  writing,  showing  just 
the  lands  we  would  consent  to  lease,  but  at  the  suggestion  of  the  agent  we 
signed  a  short  form  of  agreement,  giving  general  authority  to  lease  our  unoc¬ 
cupied  lands.  This  was  done,  with  the  full  understanding  with  the  agent  at 
the  time  that  we  should  be  allowed  to  select  the  lands  that  might  be  decided 
upon  to  lease  under  the  agreement.  This  was,  and  is,  as  much  a  part  of  the 
agreement  as  the  written  portion  thereof,  under  which  the  Indian  Office 
claims  authority  and  is  threatening  to  lease  certain  portions  of  our  lands. 
At  the  time  this  alleged  agreement  was  signed  it  was  fully  understood  and 
,  agreed  between  the  Government  agent  and  our  tribe  that  we  should  select 
three  of  our  number,  who,  together  with  the  agent,  should  go  over  the  lands 
we  might  thereafter  agree  to  lease,  and  mark  the  boundaries  thereof.  In  pur¬ 
suance  of  this  well-understood  agreement,  we  selected  three  of  our  tribe  for 
this  purpose,  and  these  persons  were  awaiting  notice  from  our  Government 
agent  to  begin  such  work  of  designating  the  lands  to  be  leased,  when  we  were 
informed  that  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  had  advertised  for  bids, 
proposing  to  lease  two-thirds  of  our  reservation.  To  any  such  proposition 
we  are  opposed,  and  have  not  consented  thereto. 

“The  Government  has  been  for  years  impressing  upon  us  the  need  of  our 
making  efforts  at  farming  and  grazing,  and  we  have  settled  along  the  streams 
and  endeavored  to  do  the  best  we  could  against  great  odds  in  a  country  where 
there  is  so  little  rainfall.  We  feel  that  if  our  lands  can  be  monopolized  by  the 
cattlemen  without  our  consent,  that  we  can  have  no  assurance  for  future 
protection.  We  believe  that  if  the  Government  paid  us  what  is  rightfully 
due  at  this  time,  we  would  have  sufficient  funds  to  invest  in  cattle,  so  that 
all  our  surplus  lands  would  be  utilized  and  our  young  men  be  employed  in 
caring  for  the  same. 

“  Realizing  that  there  are  strenuous  efforts  being  made  to  secure  our  lands, 
we  consent  to  lease  a  tract  twenty-five  miles  in  width  off  the  west  side  of  our 
reserve.  We  feel,  also,  that  there  will  be  no  difficulty  in  agreeing  to  lease 
additional  lands  if  those  we  have  selected  can  go  over  the  lands  of  the  reserva¬ 
tion  and  mark  off  the  selected  portions  thereof. 

“We  appeal  to  you  to  see  that  justice  is  accorded  us  in  this  matter.” 


Through  the  efforts  of  this  Association  and  others  who  objected  to  seeing 
a  helpless  people  thwarted  in  an  attempt  to  secure  just  recognition,  a  resolu¬ 
tion  offered  by  Senators  Rawlins  and  Jones  was  adopted,  by  which  the  Indian 
Committee  of  the  Senate  was  empowered  to  thoroughly  investigate  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  the  leases.  A  hearing  was  granted  the  Indians  by  the  Senate  Com¬ 
mittee,  and  the  testimony  given  more  than  corroborated  all  that  had  been 
said  by  those  who  opposed  the  leases  and  who  had  objected  to  the  question¬ 
able  methods  which  marked  the  action  of  the  Indian  Office  in  the  transaction. 
The  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  opposed  the  delegation  appearing  before 
the  Committee,  and  the  Indians  stated  that,  had  it  not  been  for  the  support 
given  them  by  this  Association,  they  would  have  abandoned  any  further 
effort  in  the  matter  and  returned  disheartened  to  the  reservation. 

The  Senate  Committee  was  impressed  with  the  Indians’  clear,  straight¬ 
forward  presentation  of  their  case,  and  agreed  with  their  contention — namely, 
that  they  should  designate  which  lands  were  to  be  leased,  according  to  the 
original  agreement.  Notwithstanding  this,  however,  and  that  the  matter 
was  still  under  investigation,  the  Indian  Commissioner  proceeded  to  execute 
the  Lemmon  lease.  As  a  last  resort,  the  Indians  took  their  case  into  court. 
Notice  was  served  on  Secretary  Hitchcock  and  Commissioner  Jones  to  show 
cause  why  an  injunction  should  not  be  granted  against  executing  the  Stand¬ 
ing  Rock  leases,  and  also  to  show  cause  why  a  permanent  injunction  should 
not  be  granted.  The  Indians’  side  was  argued  by  able  counsel,  but  the  Court 


5 


of  Appeals  of  the  District  of  Columbia  decided  against  them.  An  appeal  may 
yet  be  taken  to  the  United  States  Supreme  Court. 

The  Association,  wishing  further  light  on  this  matter,  secured  the  services 
of  Rev.  T.  L.  Riggs,  the  well-known  missionary  of  the  Congregational  Church, 
who  has  been  working  for  years  among  the  Sioux  Indians,  and  who  speaks 
Dacotah  fluently,  to  make  a  personal  investigation  and  to  report  existing 
conditions  on  the  reservation,  the  sentiment  of  the  Indians,  and  how  the  oper¬ 
ation  of  the  leases  would  affect  their  interests.  The  report  of  Mr.  Riggs  shows 
that  there  is  really  no  surplus  land  that  ought  to  be  leased ;  that  the  Indians 
have  made  good  progress  in  stock-raising,  and  that  the  reservation  is  in 
reality  only  sufficient  for  their  own  needs,  allowing  for  a  natural  increase  of" 
their  herds.  We  present  the  report  herewith: 


“REPORT  ON  STANDING  ROCK  LEASING  OF  RESERVATION. 

“In  giving  the  results  of  my  recent  investigation  of  the  proposition  to 
lease  the  lands  of  Standing  Rock  Indian  Reservation  for  grazing  purposes,  I 
will  first  make  brief  outline  of  the  history  of  the  case  as  obtained  from  the 
Indians. 

“History. 

“  The  first  public  move  was  a  council  held  early  in  May,  1901,  at  Standing 
Rock.  At  this  time  the  party  appearing  to  ask  lease  privileges  was  the  Chi¬ 
cago  and  Milwaukee  Railway  Co.,  represented  by  their  Agent,  Mr.  Hunter. 
The  Department  did  not  then  assume  to  press  the  matter  [standing],  rather 
leaving  the  case  to  the  decision  by  the  Indians  themselves.  The  proposition 
was  made  in  somewhat  indefinite  form,  asking  that  the  Indians  authorize  a 
lease  of  reservation  land  represented  as  a  tract  in  the  western  portion  of  the 
same,  but  understood  by  the  Indians  as  including  all  that  part  of  the  reserva¬ 
tion  south  of  Grand  River.  This  they  rejected,  there  being  no  vote  in  favor 
wdien  asked  to  accept. 

“Again,  in  the  latter  part  of  May,  there  was  a  council  held.  Again  the 
Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and  St.  Paul  Railway  Co.  appeared  in  the  person  of  Mr. 
Hunter,  asking  to  lease  “certain  portions”  of  the  reservation  and  other 
privileges.  This  proposition  was  strongly  urged  by  Agent  Bingenheimer, 
and  had  further  the  indorsement  by  telegram  of  the  Indian  Office  at  Wash¬ 
ington.  This  second  offer  was  rejected,  there  being  no  vote  asked  or  taken, 
because  of  the  almost  unanimous  expression  of  opposition  to  it. 

“Late  in  October  the  Indian  Office  offered  a  proposition  for  leasing  reser¬ 
vation  lands  by  the  Department, — the  proposed  lessees  not  appearing, — 
which  was  favorably  considered.  This  proposition,  as  presented  to  the 
Indians  and  as  accepted  by  them,  was  that  a  tract  of  land  thirty  miles  square, 
or  its  equivalent,  25  townships,  in  the  northwest  corner  of  the  reservation, 
should  be  leased.  The  Indians  accepted  this,  subject  to  two  conditions;  that 
is,  that  this  tract  be  located  on  unoccupied  lands,  so  as  not  to  conflict  with 
the  rights  of  Indians,  and  that  this  tract  be  first  definitely  marked  out  by  a 
committee  of  three  Indians,  chosen  by  themselves,  and  the  Agent.  These 
two  conditions  were  an  essential  part  of  the  agreement,  and  separate  from 
these  there  was  no  agreement  made.  On  this  question  there  is  absolutely  no 
variation  in  testimony  given.  It  would  appear,  however,  that  in  the  written 
form  submitted  for  the  Indians  to  sign,  these  essential  conditions  were  left  out, 
and,  whereas  the  Indians  supposed  this  to  be  the  identical  agreement  they 
had  made  in  council,  it  covered  only  the  bare  fact  of  their  consent  to  the  leas¬ 
ing  of  lands. 

“A  further  interesting  bit  of  history  is  the  fact  that  previous  to  this  Octo¬ 
ber  agreement  a  party  of  cattlemen,  railroad  men  (Chicago,  Milwaukee,  and 
St.  Paul) ,  and  local  representatives  of  the  Indian  service  went  out  over  a  part 
of  the  reservation  and,  it  is  said,  came  to  an  understanding  among  them¬ 
selves,  portioning  off  all  of  the  western  two-thirds  of  the  reservation  in  strips 
of  twelve  and  six  miles  wide,  on  lines  running  north  and  south;  these  strips 
to  be  fenced  on  such  lines  regardless  of  the  Indian  occupants.  This  was 


6 


prior  to  the  present  proposition  to  lease,  and  presumably  a  proposed  modifi¬ 
cation  of  the  permit  system  or  $1.00  a  head  order  of  the  Department. 


“  Limits  of  Leases. 

‘  ‘  If  one  trusts  to  the  record  of  the  hearing  of  this  case  before  the  Senate 
Committee,  there  seems  to  be  no  definite  understanding  on  the  part  of  the 
Honorable  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs,  Agent  Bingenheimer,  or  the  pro¬ 
posed  lessees,  of  just  where  the  lines  are  to  run.  The  statement  ‘  I  do  not 
know’  appears  far  too  often.  The  call  for  proposals  issued  by  the  Indian 
Office  under  date  of  December  23,  1901,  offers  to  bidders  a  tract  covered  by 
'a  distance  of  about  fifty-six  miles,’  the  entire  width  of  the  reservation 
eastward,  and  from  the  western  boundary  of  the  reservation  ‘to  the  range 
line  between  ranges  twenty-six  and  twenty-seven  ’  in  South  Dakota  and  1  the 
range  line  between  ranges  eighty-one  and  eighty-two  in  North  Dakota.’  It 
may  be  here  remarked  that  in  South  Dakota  the  Government  surveys  are 
made  for  that  part  lying  west  of  the  Missouri  River  from  the  Black  Hills 
Meridian ;  ranges  running  eastward  instead  of  to  the  westward  as  for  locali¬ 
ties  east  of  the  river.  In  North  Dakota  the  survey  continues  the  system 
uniformly  of  ranges  running  to  the  westward.  I  ascertained  from  the  survey 
stakes  that  the  range  line  between  ranges  twenty-six  and  twenty-seven 
crosses  Grand  River  in  a  general  direction  of  nearly  at  right  angles  at  a  point 
about  two  and  one-half  miles  west  of  the  Grand  River  Government  Boarding 
School.  This  fact  surely  should  not  have  escaped  the  knowledge  of  Agent 
Bingenheimer. 

“Under  the  modified  form,  and  according  to  the  leases  known  as  the 
Lemmon  and  the  Walker  leases,  the  eastern  limit  of  land  proposed  to  be 
leased  is  moved  one  row  of  townships,  six  miles,  to  the  westward  of  the  origi¬ 
nal  proposal,  including  all  west  of  ‘the  range  between  ranges  twenty-five  and 
twenty-six,’  and  from  there  ‘due  north,’  through  the  lands  surveyed  under 
the  eastern  meridian.  This  places  the  line  eight  and  one-half  miles  west  of 
the  Grand  River  School  as  its  point  of  crossing  Grand  River,  or  some  two 
miles  westward  of  the  mouth  of  Little  Oak  Creek,  which  comes  into  the  Grand 
on  the  south  with  a  long  westerly  slant  from  the  southwest.  All  this  is  a  sim¬ 
ple  matter  of  running  out  the  lines  of  the  regular  Government  survey.  Just 
where  this  line  extends  through  North  Dakota  and  down  into  the  valley  of 
the  Cannon  Ball  I  was  not  able  to  take  time  to  ascertain.  It  presumably 
lies  a  little  to  the  eastward  of  the  sub-agency  on  the  Upper  Cannon  Ball.  It 
certainly  lies  from  six  to  eight  miles  to  the  eastward  of  the  sub-agency  on 
Grand  River,  known  as  Bull  Head  Station.  I  did  not  ran  the  lines  up  to 
Bull  Head,  and  as  Grand  River  is  very  crooked,  I  cannot  give  the  exact  dis¬ 
tance.  The  sub-agency  lies,  however,  a  little  to  the  north  of  due  west  from 
Grand  River  School,  and  the  distance  between  the  two  places  is  sixteen  miles. 
This  would  bring  the  lease  limits  six  or  more  miles  east  of  Bull  Head,  without 
any  doubt. 

“Number  of  Families. 

“There  appears  to  be  fully  as  dense  ignorance,  on  the  part  of  those  whose 
business  it  is  to  know,  regarding  the  number  of  Indians  who  will  be  affected 
by  this  leasing  of  land,  as  in  the  matter  of  land  limits.  Agent  Bingenheimer 
tells  the  Senate  Committee  that  eighty  families  might  possibly  be  included. 
He  certainly  knew  better,  or  ought  to  have  known  better.  Under  the  origi¬ 
nal  calls  for  proposals  to  include  lands  lying  west  of  the  range  line  between 
ranges  twenty-six  and  twenty-seven,  etc.,  there  could  not  possibly  be  less 
than  four  hundred  families  within  the  proposed  lines.  I  do  not  know  that 
any  one  has  taken  the  trouble  to  make  careful  census.  It  included  nearly 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  on  the  rolls  of  Bull  Head,  a  few  short  of  one 
thousand  persons.  It  also  included  the  great  majority  of  those  enrolled  on 
the  Upper  Cannon  Ball  Station, — the  exact  number  of  whom  I  was  not  able 
to  learn, — besides  scattering  families  belonging  elsewhere.  These  facts  are 
a  matter  of  record  and  can  easily  be  ascertained. 

“Under  the  final  proposition  to  lease  lands  extending  only  to  the  range 
line  between  ranges  twenty-five  and  twenty-six,  there  are  on  Grand  River 
from  Bull  Head  Station  to  the  western  limits  of  the  reservation,  one  hundred 
and  seventeen  (117)  separate  families,  enrolled  at  Bull  Head  under  one 


7 


hundred  and  twenty-two  (122)  separate  tickets.  Below  Bull  Head,  and  to 
be  included  within  lease  limits,  are  seventy  (70)  separate  families,  recorded 
under  seventy-eight  (78)  separate  tickets,  or  one  hundred  and  eighty-seven 
(187)  families,  and  classed  under  two  hundred  (200)  tickets.  These  tickets 
are  for  convenience  in  making  issue  of  rations.  On  the  Cannon  Ball  I  have 
not  so  accurate  information,  but  there  are  counted  thirty-two  (32)  families, 
all  of  whom  will  come  within  the  limits  of  leased  lands,  a  total  of  two  hun¬ 
dred  and  thirty-two  (232)  families  according  to  agency  ticket  record.  I  did 
not  have  time  to  secure  the  names  of  the  heads  of  families,  but  this  is  imma¬ 
terial.  Nor  was  I  able  to  obtain  the  information  needed  to  say  just  how  many 
families  there  are  on  lands  included  in  the  Lemmon  lease  and  the  Walker 
lease  separately.  To  do  this  would  require  more  time  than  I  had  at  my 
disposal. 

“  In  view  of  the  fact  that  Agent  Bingenheimer  told  the  Senate  Committee 
that  Bull  Head  Station  was  not  to  be  included  in  the  lease — a  full  township 
to  be  cut  out — and  that  this  tract  is  very  thickly  settled,  I  was  interested  to 
learn  just  how  many  occupied  that  immediate  neighborhood,  for  it  has  ap¬ 
parently  always  been  the  policy  to  discourage  settlement  too  close  to  the  sub¬ 
agencies.  Within  a  radius  of  four  miles,  taking  Bull  Head  as  a  center  and 
making  a  circle  eight  miles  in  diameter,  so  as  to  include  all  possible  comers 
of  a  tract  six  miles  square,  I  find  but  thirteen  families;  and  of  these,  two 
families  occupy  temporarily,  that  their  children  may  attend  school. 


“Land  Needed  by  the  Indians. 

“  How  much  land  the  Indians  need  for  present  and  future  grazing  of  their 
own  stock  is  a  question  that  should  have  an  answer.  The  movement  for 
leasing  Indian  lands  appears  to  have  reason  in  it  on  the  assumption  that  there 
are  vast  regions  not  now  occupied,  and  the  Indian  Office  views  with  acute 
pain  this  great  loss.  I  am  reminded  in  this  by  an  expression  of  a  young 
stockman  who,  with  comprehensive  wave  of  the  arm  over  the  wide  prairies, 
announced:  ‘Yes,  you  bet,  you  are  losing  $10,000  a  day,  Mr.  X.,  by  not 
having  cattle  to  eat  up  this  grass.  ’  So  the  Indian  Office  laments  the  loss  of 
many  dollars  a  day — to  the  stockmen — by  their  not  being  able  to  turn  reser¬ 
vation  grass  into  Porterhouse  steak.  Now,  it  is  well  known  that  the  wild 
grasses  of  this  range  do  not  recuperate  quickly.  No  sane  man  expects  to  be 
able  to  cut  next  year  over  the  same  ground  that  this  year  had  given  a  crop  of 
upland  hay.  The  year  following,  possibly,  but  probably  not  before  the  year 
after  that,  he  may  reasonably  expect  to  run  his  mower  over  the  land  again. 
This  means  that  it  requires  four  years  to  produce  a  crop  of  upland  hay. 
Bottom  lands  do  better  than  this  as  a  matter  of  course,  but  the  land  in  ques¬ 
tion  is  almost  entirely  of  upland  character.  The  same  is  true  in  grazing; 
land  fed  off  closely  one  year  will  not  give  equally  good  feed  the  next.  Many 
stockmen  agree  upon  twenty-five  to  thirty  acres  of  grazing  land  as  necessary 
for  the  support  of  one  steer;  and  this  besides  hay  land.  Others  claim  that 
year  in  and  year  out  fifty  acres  of  grazing  of  all  sorts  is  none  too  much  for  one 
animal.  This  conservative  estimate  is  probably  not  far  from  correct. 

“Now,  the  Indians  of  Standing  Rock  Agency  own  between  thirteen  and 
fourteen  thousand  head  of  cattle;  there  are  very  few  families  where  a  small 
bunch  of  cattle  is  not  owned,  and  I  believe  there  is  but  one  man  who  has  over 
two  hundred  head.  Their  holdings  of  cattle  are  small,  but  remarkably  well 
distributed.  Probably,  also,  they  own  about  as  many  horses,  or  a  few  more 
horses  than  cattle.  This  would  give  then  twenty-six  to  thirty  thousand  head 
of  stock,  demanding,  at  fifty  acres  for  each  animal,  1,500,000  acres  for  present 
needs. 

“  It  would  be  the  poorest  kind  of  foresight  that  did  not  allow  for  increase. 
One  hundred  per  cent,  increase  would  call  for  3,000,000  acres.  And  it  will 
require  at  least  four  hundred  per  cent,  increase  on  present  holdings  to  make 
these  Standing  Rock  Indians  self-supporting  as  stock-raisers,  calling  for  the 
round  figures  of  5,000,000  acres — more,  probably,  than  the  entire  reservation 
contains.  And  yet  the  Lemmon  lease  calls  for  nearly  800,000  acres,  and 
nearly  500,000  acres  will  be  handed  over  under  the  Walker  lease. 

“But  to  take  the  Grand  River  region,  which  includes  all  of  the  460,800 
acres  that  were  to  be  leased  to  Mr.  Walker.  The  Indians  of  Grand  River 
owned,  in  1901,  5247  cattle.  Almost  all  of  these  are  within  the  limits  of  this 


8 


Walker  lease.  Probably  with  their  horses  they  now  own  11,000  head  of 
stock.  It  would  not  appear  that  there  is  much  land  here  that  is  suffering  to 
be  leased.  The  Indian  delegate  who  said  to  the  Senate  -Committee,  in  oppo¬ 
sition  to  the  lease  project,  ‘we  want  that  for  ourselves,’  evidently  knew 
what  he  was  talking  about. 

“In  concluding  this  portion  of  my  report  I  wish  to  say  that  though  my 
investigation,  so  far  as  made,  was  careful  and  complete,  I  am  very  well  aware 
that  I  have  not  covered  the  entire  ground.  There  are  other  closely  related 
questions — the  water-supply  of  the  region,  the  timber  growth  and  the  lignite 
coal  beds — that  properly  should  be  studied  carefully  in  order  to  give  a  full 
and  comprehensive  statement.  This  I  have  not  had  time  to  do.  Indeed,  a 
man  might  profitably  spend  several  months  in  looking  up  these  matters  be¬ 
fore  being  able  to  cover  all  I  would  or  could  do  in  this  my  report  which  is  now 
respectfully  submitted.  “Very  truly, 

“T.  L.  Riggs. 

“Oahe,  S.  D.,  March  17 ,  ipo2.” 


We  have  received  the  proceedings  of  a  council  of  the  Indians,  held  at  Rock 
Creek,  Standing  Rock  Reservation,  at  which  the  Indians  unanimously  op¬ 
posed  the  leasing  of  their  lands,  and  desired  the  Agent  to  send  their  protest  to 
the  Commissioner  at  once.  The  facts  developed  at  this  conference  are  ex¬ 
ceedingly  significant.  If  the  leases  were  made  out  before  the  Indians  agreed 
to  the  proposition  in  any  manner,  the  matter  can  only  be  explained  in  one  of 
two  ways:  The  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  was  either  guilty  of  great 
blundering,  or  was  not  actuated  by  right  motives  in  the  transaction.  The 
account  of  this  council  is  attested  by  Miss  Mary  C.  Collins,  a  Missionary  of  the 
Congregational  Church  at  Standing  Rock,  who  has  labored  long  and  success¬ 
fully  among  these  people.  Although  not  verbatim,  it  gives  a  full  summary 
of  what  took  place.  It  is  as  follows: 

“  Sioux  Indians  in  Council  at  Bull  Head  Station,  Standing  Rock  Agency, 
April  12,  1902. 

“A  council  called  by  the  Chiefs  to  protest  against  Mr.  Lemmon  building 
his  fence  while  his  lease  case  is  still  in  the  courts. 

“The  farmer,  Mr.  Spooner,  sent  for  the  Agent.  There  was  much  excite¬ 
ment  among  the  Indians.  The  Indians  sent  for  Miss  Collins  with  urgent 
request  that  she  be  there  on  time  to  be  a  witness  as  to  what  was  done.  The 
Agent  reached  Bull  Head  a  few  minutes  before  Miss  Collins. 

“When  Miss  Collins  arrived,  groups  of  men  with  hard-set  teeth  and  ear¬ 
nest  eyes  were  standing  about  watching  anxiously  the  hill  to  see  if  the  Mission¬ 
ary  was  coming;  she  was  given  a  cordial  greeting. 

“The  meeting  convened  between  two  and  three  o’clock  p.m.,  and  the 
council  room  was  packed — all  men  with  one  purpose.  One  who  understands 
men  would  know  it  was  not  a  time  for  trifling.  These  Indians  were  here  to 
assert  their  rights  as  men.  The  Agent  opened  the  meeting  (not  having  a 
fluent  interpreter,  he  labored  under  some  difficulty) . 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘I  have  come  here  at  your  request  to  hear  what 
you  have  to  say.  I  am  told  that  you  do  not  want  Lemmon  to  go  on  building 
his  fence.  You  ask  who  gave  me  authority  to  permit  it.  I  received  this 
(showing  telegram)  telegram,  dated  March  2  2d,  from  Commissioner  Jones, 
telling  me  to  allow  Lemmon  to  proceed  with  his  fence.  I  have  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  I  can  only  obey  orders. 

“  ‘  I  hope  that  you  understand  that  your  rations  were  cut  down  last  year 
fifty  per  cent.  They  will  be  cut  again  the  first  of  July  fifty  per  cent.  I  am 
allowed  to  pay  this  year  four  thousand  dollars  for  labor — about  one  dollar 
per  capita.  I  shall  pay  one  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents  a  day.  I  have 
asked  the  Government  to  use  a  part  of  your  money  to  buy  cattle  for  you. 
I  have  asked  for  seventy-five  bulls  and  three  thousand  six  hundred  two-year- 
old  heifers — one  for  each  person.  You  have  not  enough  to  eat.  What  are 
you  going  to  do?  See  these  old  people.  They  will  starve  if  they  do  not 
have  a  full  ration.  You  cannot  live  on  the  rations  the  Government  will  give 
you.  You  will  have  to  work.  You  cannot  find  much  work  to  do.  This 


9 


Lemmon  lease  will  pay  seven  dollars  a  year  per  capita.  If  I  tell  the  Depart¬ 
ment  that  you  do  not  have  enough  to  eat,  they  will  say  you  had  land  to  spare 
and  would  not  lease  it,  and  so  I  shall  not  be  able  to  do  anything  for  you.  You 
ought  to  lease  it  to  get  this  seven  dollars  a  year — you  will  need  it.  Your 
rations  are  only  half  now  what  they  were  a  year  ago,  and  in  July  will  be  cut 
in  two  again.  How  can  you  live?’ 

“Grey  Eagle:  ‘Are  we  to  have  the  annual  per  capita  payment  of  our 
interest  money?’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘Yes,  this  year.  I  have  tried  to  get  the  hide 
money  and  your  three  dollars  per  capita  payment  this  year;  I  think  you  will 
get  it.  The  Department  has  decided  that  it  is  not  best  to  pay  you  your 
interest  in  money.  They  will  spend  it  for  you.’ 

“Thunder  Hawk:  ‘Last  spring  we  had  two  councils.  You  asked  us  to 
lend  our  land  to  the  Railroad.  We  did  not  wish  to  lease.  We  thought  we 
had  a  right  to  refuse.  The  Commissioner  frightened  us  by  threatening  to 
turn  cattle  loose  upon  us.  Then  in  the  fall  you  called  a  third  meeting.  We 
were  helpless.  We  wanted  to  do  the  best  we  could  to  protect  ourselves,  so 
we  agreed  to  lease  thirty  miles  square  on  the  northwest  comer  of  the  reserva¬ 
tion,  where  there  were  no  houses.  This  council  chose  three  men — Louis 
Primeau,  Antoine  De  Rockbrain,  and  myself — to  go  with  you  and  designate 
the  lines.  You  said  that  you  would  meet  us  here  at  Bull  Head  Station  and 
that  you  would  go  with  us.  We  waited,  but  you  did  not  come.  We  thought 
that  when  we  had  laid  out  the  lines  that  we  should  have  an  open  council; 
that  you  and  Lemmon  would  meet  us  and  read  the  contract  to  us,  and  that 
we  would  then  together  come  to  an  agreement  like  men.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘You  are  right,  and  I  fully  intended  to  do  as  you 
say.  But  right  now,  before  all  these  people,  let  me  say  had  it  been  left  for 
me  I  should  have  done  just  as  I  promised.  But  it  was  not  left  to  you  nor 
to  me.  Before  I  had  submitted  a  report  of  that  council  to  the  Department, 
I  was  told  that  the  Commissioner  had  made  out  the  leases  and  they  were 
printed.  I  could  do  nothing.  Those  lines  were  run  in  Washington.  Your 
council  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  I  did  not  send  them  until  the  leases  had 
been  made  out  and  the  boundaries  settled.  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  it;  and 
further,  right  now,  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  cannot  say  or  do  any¬ 
thing  except  as  my  superiors  in  the  Department  tell  me.  If  I  could,  I  would 
do  as  you  wish;  but  I  can  do  or  say  nothing  contrary  to  their  wishes.  I 
cannot  change  a  line;  I  can  do  nothing.  All  that  I  can  do  is  to  obey  their 
orders.  The  reason  that  I  did  not  go  out  with  you  to  lay  out  the  lines  is. 
because  it  was  taken  out  of  my  hands  by  the  Commissioner.  I  could  not 
keep  my  promise  to  you.  If  any  of  those  who  will  be  fenced  inside  the  pas¬ 
ture  wish  to  move  out,  I  will  ask  the  Government  for  lumber  to  build  them 
houses  outside.  I  will  permit  them  to  move.’ 

“Weasel  Bear:  ‘The  promise  was  that  we  lease  only  unoccupied  land; 
that  no  man’s  homestead  should  be  disturbed;  that  the  leases  should  run 
so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  men  who  have  built  substantial  homes.  We' 
do  not  know  where  the  lines  run,  how  much  land  you  have  given  Lemmon.. 
But  we  do  know  that  at  least  thirty-five  of  the  Bull  Head  families  are  surely 
in  the  pasture,  who  went  there  to  settle  on  land  that  they  intended  to  take 
as  allotments.  These  men  do  not  want  to  abandon  their  homes.  We  forbid: 
Lemmon  to  build  a  fence  that  will  inclose  these  homes.  The  delegates  who> 
went  to  Washington  put  our  case  into  the  hands  of  lawyers.  As  we  now  un¬ 
derstand,  there  has  been  no  report  made  to  us  by  these  lawyers  stating  that 
we  had  lost  our  case.  We  were  told  to  await  the  decision  of  the  white  man’s, 
court.  If  we  can  wait  patiently  for  your  courts,  why  should  the  Commis¬ 
sioner,  who  is  holding  such  a  high  office  under  the  President,  be  permitted 
to  ignore  your  courts  and  order  Lemmon  to  build  the  corral  around  the 
fence?  And  this  is  what  we  wish  you  to  tell  the  Commissioner.  We  have 
no  two  plans:  only  one  have  we  submitted  and  we  stand  by  that.  Take 
your  Committee  and  gladly  will  we  go  with  you  and  lay  out  the  boundaries 
and  make  a  contract  with  Lemmon.  We  bind  ourselves  to  no  other  con¬ 
tract.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘How  are  you  going  to  live?  Your  rations  are 
now  so  small  that  they  do  not  half  feed  you.  You  need  every  dollar  that 
you  can  get.  After  July  ist  they  will  be  still  less.  You  will  have  to  work. 
Where  will  you  get  work?  I  say  that  I  am  not  doing  this.  I  cannot  forbid. 


10 


Lemmon  to  build  the  fence.  I  can  only  tell  the  Commissioner  what  you 
say.’ 

“Weasel  Bear:  ‘  It  is  not  money  nor  rations  that  we  are  considering.  We 
are  standing  by  our  rights  as  men.  This  is  our  land  and  we  are  the  ones 
to  decide  what  parts  we  shall  lease,  or  whether  we  shall  lease  anything.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘You  are  not  leasing  this  land  for  nothing.  You 
get  big  pay.  Seven  dollars  per  capita  yearly.  You  need  this  money.  You 
have  not  enough  to  eat  now.  Look  at  your  old  people.  They  will  starve 
on  less  than  full  rations.’ 

“One  Bull:  ‘ If  I  am  stronger  than  Weasel  Bear  and  I  go  to  him  and  say, 
“You  have  a  good  farm;  I  want  it;  you  must  let  me  have  it,”  Weasel  Bear 
says,  “No.  I  settled  on  this  farm  to  make  a  home  for  myself  and  my  chil¬ 
dren.  I  have  gathered  property  about  me  and  I  am  settled  for  good.  In  a 
few  years  I  can  support  my  family  comfortably.”  I  insist.  I  say,  “That 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  case.  I  do  not  want  your  place  for  nothing, 
I  will  pay  you  for  it.”  Now,  because  I  am  stronger  than  Weasel  Bear,  though 
I  will  pay  him  well,  would  it  be  just  or  right  or  manly  for  me  to  drive  him 
off  and  take  his  home?  I  say  No.  It  is  wrong.  He  does  not  want  my 
pay.  He  wants  his  home  because  it  is  his,  and  it  is  his  right  to  refuse  to  sell 
or  lend.  We  want  to  be  treated  like  men — not  driven  like  dogs.  For  twenty 
years  we  have  tried  to  learn  the  white  man’s  ways.  We  came  to  the  courts 
in  Washington.  We  left  our  case  there.  We  thought  the  courts  would  rule 
wisely  and  justly.  As  the  courts  had  taken  our  case,  we  thought  we  were 
recognized  as  men,  but  now  the  Commissioner  shows  us  that  the  white  man’s 
court  is  no  better  than  his  word,  and  while  our  case  is  in  court  not  yet  settled, 
he  orders  Lemmon  to  go  ahead  and  corral  us.  We  are  not  brutes.  We 
will  not  submit.  Tell  Lemmon  to  stop  building  the  fence.  Respect  our 
manhood  and  we  shall  obey  the  laws.  We  will  lease  the  part  that  we  selected. 
The  land  is  ours.  We  will  lease  the  northwest  comer  and  will  go  with  you 
to  make  the  boundaries,  and  in  open  council  hear  his  offer  and  draw  up  the 
contract  together.  We  forbid  Lemmon  to  go  on  with  the  fence.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  1  If  any  one  who  will  be  inside  the  fence  wishes  to 
move  out  I  will  let  him  and  will  try  to  get  lumber  for  houses  for  you. ' 

‘  ‘  Rosebud :  ‘  Where  will  the  money  come  from  with  which  you  will  buy 
the  lumber  ?  ’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘  It  is  a  special  gift  from  the  United  States  appro¬ 
priated  each  year  by  Congress.  It  is  called  subsistence  and  civilization 
funds.  It  is  not  Indian  money.  It  may  be  that  it  is  from  the  sale  of  lands 
prior;  but  if  it  is,  it  was  a  long  time  ago.  It  is  a  free  gift.’ 

“Wakutemani:  ‘No  one  wants  to  abandon  his  home.  Wait  until  we 
get  word  from  our  lawyers  that  we  have  been  defeated  in  the  courts.  We 
are  not  defeated.  The  Commissioner  has  no  right  to  tell  Lemmon  to  go 
ahead.  Trust  the  courts.  We  want  you  to  forbid  Lemmon  to  proceed 
until  the  case  is  decided  against  us.  We  have  made  no  new  contract.  We 
stand  by  the  one  talked  of  in  October,  thirty  miles  square  on  the  northwest 
corner  of  the  reservation,  and  they  to  pay  not  less  than  a  dollar  a  head  for 
the  cattle.  We  protest,  and  we  want  you  to  tell  the  Commissioner  to 
stop  Lemmon  until  the  courts  decide  whether  we  have  the  rights  of  men  or 
not.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘I  will  write  at  once  to  the  Commissioner,  but  I 
am  afraid  I  can  do  nothing.  You  may  sell  fence  posts  to  Lemmon  at  six 
and  one  quarter  cents  apiece,  and  you  may  haul  the  wire  which  is  now  at 
Evarts,  and  will  soon  be  at  Fort  Yates.  You  can  earn  a  great  deal  of  money 
that  way,  and  you  people  not  having  enough  to  eat  ought  to  be  glad  to  earn 
so  much  money.’ 

“One  Bull:  ‘We  are  Indians  and  cannot  live  without  wood  and  water. 
In  winter  we  cannot  live  upon  the  high  planes  and  keep  our  herds.  We 
have  to  live  along  the  streams  where  there  are  ravines,  and  brush  and  shel¬ 
tered  spots,  and  wood  and  water.  This  lease  will  deprive  a  great  many  people 
of  their  sheltered  homes.  Streams  and  wood  are  scarce.  We  will  not  lease 
the  best  of  our  land.  We  will  never  consent  to  have  our  brothers  corraled 
like  cattle.  We  are  men  like  you.  Take  the  committee  and  go  out  with 
them  and  decide  where  Lemmon  shall  build  his  fence;  we  will  agree  to  that.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘You  understand  it  that  way,  but  I  did  not  un¬ 
derstand  it  so.  Still  I  say  that  if  the  Commissioner  had  let  me  I  would 


11 


have  carried  out  your  plans.  But  I  did  not  know  that  you  were  to  mark 
the  boundaries.’ 

“Rosebud:  ‘If  you  did  not  understand  that  the  Committee  who  were 
selected  to  go  with  you  were  chosen  by  us  to  mark  the  boundaries,  why  did 
you  arrange  to  meet  them  and  promise  to  go  with  them,  and  why  did  you 
say  you  would  have  gone  if  the  Commissioner  had  let  you  ?  ’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘I  say  I  would  have  carried  out  your  wishes  as 
nearly  as  I  could,  and  I  would  have  let  you  decide  the  boundaries,  but  I  did 
not  understand  that  you  expected  to  do  so.’ 

“ Wakutemani:  ‘We  have  met  here  to  show  a  plain  talk  with  the  Agent. 
He  now  understands  what  we  want.  We  wish  him  to  write  at  once  or  tele¬ 
graph  to  the  Commissioner  that  we  forbid  Lemmon  to  go  on  with  the  fence 
until  the  case  is  decided  in  the  courts.  We  ought  to  close  this  meeting  by 
a  rising  vote  on  this  protest.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘All  willing  for  Lemmon  to  go  on,  arise.’ 

“  (Not  one  arose.) 

“  ‘All  who  protest  and  wish  me  to  write  the  Commissioner  to  stop  Lemmon, 
arise.’ 

“  (The  whole  houseful  arose  without  a  single  exception.) 

“  Rosebud:  ‘We  desire  to  have  our  missionaries  see  the  letter.  We  have 
decided  by  a  unanimous  vote  that  no  more  papers,  contracts,  etc.,  are  to 
be  signed  by  us  until  first  seen  by  our  missionaries.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘Who  are  they?’ 

“Rosebud:  ‘Father  Bernard,  Winona,  and  Mr.  Deloria.’ 

“Agent  Bingenheimer:  ‘I  cannot  do  that.  I  will  send  just  as  strong  a 
letter  as  I  can,  but  I  will  not  submit  my  letters  to  any  one.  However,  I 
will  give  you  a  copy  and  they  can  see  the  copy.’ 

“Rosebud:  ‘We  do  not  mean  that  we  cannot  trust  you, -but  we  feel  safer 
if  our  missionaries  see  what  is  said  to  be  our  expression ;  and  if  they  have  a 
copy  they  cannot  say  in  Washington  that  we  never  said  it  or  that  we  said 
something  else.  A  copy  will  do  us.’ 

“Wakutemani:  ‘We  should  close  now,  as  it  is  late.  There  are  many 
lesser  things  we  want  settled  while  the  Agent  is  here. ' 

“The  meeting  closed.’’ 

This  lease  question  was  thoroughly  treated  in  several  articles  which 
appeared  in  the  “Outlook,”  from  the  pen  of  George  Kennan,  its  Washington 
correspondent.  Mr.  Kennan  had  access  to  the  evidence  in  our  possession, 
and  also  made  a  careful  independent  investigation  of  all  the  data  obtainable. 
In  the  first  statement,  published  in  the  “Outlook”  of  March  29,  1902,  Mr. 
Kennan  makes  charges  of  a  serious  nature  against  the  Commissioner  of 
Indian  Affairs,  which,  unfortunately,  seem  justified  by  all  that  has  come  to 
the  surface.  Among  other  things,  he  says: 

“  But  the  circumstances  that  attended  the  awarding  of  these  leases  were 
quite  as  remarkable  and  significant  as  were  the  leases  themselves.  It  is 
perfectly  clear,  from  the  evidence  laid  before  the  Committee,  that  certain 
cattlemen  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  reservation  knew  what  was  going  on, 
and  had  formed  a  ‘pool ’  or  syndicate  to  check  competition,  keep  down  rates, 
and,  if  possible,  shut  out  other  bidders.  This  may  be  inferred,  not  only  from 
the  shortness  of  the  time  allowed  between  advertisement  and  award,  but 
from  the  fact  that  the  bids  had  a  very  limited  range — viz.,  from  a  minimum 
rate  of  three  cents  to  a  maximum  rate  of  three  cents  and  half  a  mill  per  acre, 
although  grazing  land  in  the  Cheyenne  Reservation,  just  south  of  Standing 
Rock,  was  leased  at  that  very  time  for  five  cents  per  acre,  and  land  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Missouri  River  for  twelve  cents  per  acre. 

“But  the  existence  of  this  local  ‘pool’  or  syndicate  of  stockmen  is  not 
merely  a  matter  of  inference  and  conjecture;  it  is  a  fact  of  record.  In  reply 
to  a  question  from  Senator  Harris,  Commissioner  Jones  said:  ‘From  the 
records  of  the  Office  it  appears  that  they  [the  local  stockmen]  have  come  to 
some  agreement  among  themselves.  The  land  was  divided  into  two  tracts, 
and  those  who  have  cattle  near  the  reservation  agreed  among  themselves 
to  put  in  a  certain  number  of  cattle  divided  proportionately  on  some  basis. 


12 


That  was  an  understanding  among  the  lessees.’  In  other  words,  the  local 
stockmen,  who  seem  to  have  had  early  notice  of  the  leasing  plan,  formed  a 
syndicate  and  promptly  put  in  their  low  bids.  Then  the  quick  action  of 
the  Indian  Office  in  opening  these  bids  protected  them  from  the  competition 
of  other  stockmen  who,  perhaps,  were  not  so  favorably  situated,  and  who 
did  not  have  time,  after  the  advertisement  and  before  the  award,  to  get  their 
proposals  in.  Senator  Gamble  informed  the  Committee  that  he  had  received 
complaints,  based  on  this  ground,  from  other  stockmen  outside  the  syndicate, 
and  suggested  that  *  the  time  for  the  opening  of  the  bids  might  have  been 
more  extended.’  The  Indian  Commissioner  did  not  explain  why  the  time 
was  not  more  extended,  and  when  he  was  asked  by  Senator  Jones  whether 
three  cents  an  acre  was  an  adequate  price  for  the  grazing  privilege  given 
to  the  ‘pool,’  he  replied,  ‘I  do  not  know  anything  about  it.’ 

“Mr.  William  V.  Wade,  however,  of  Wade,  North  Dakota,  seems  to  know 
something  about  it,  and  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Jones,  which  was  laid  before 
the  Committee,  he  says:  ‘Seeing  by  the  papers  that  you  are  taking  some  in¬ 
terest  in  the  wrong  being  done  the  Sioux  Indians  by  the  renting  of  their 
reservation  to  a  company  with  which  the  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  is 
connected ,  I  take  the  privilege  of  writing  you  upon  the  subject.  I  think  it  is 
all  wrong,  for  the  following  reasons.’  After  stating  his  reasons,  Mr.  Wade 
adds  in  conclusion:  ‘A  thorough  investigation  will  show  up  some  dark  objects 
only  slightly  under  cover.’ 

“Whether  Mr.  Wade’s  charge  that  the  Indian  Commissioner  was  con¬ 
nected  with  the  syndicate  to  which  the  leases  were  made  is  well  founded  or 
not,  I  have  no  means  of  finding  out;  but  that  the  Indian  Office  has  yielded 
in  another  similar  case  to  a  very  strong  ‘  pull  ’  of  some  sort  is  more  than  in¬ 
dicated  in  a  remarkable  series  of  private  letters  submitted  by  Senator  Raw¬ 
lins  and  printed  in  the  Committee’s  record  of  its  proceedings.  The  writer 
of  these  letters — a  man  named  Harper — is,  or  was,  interested  with  others 
in  obtaining  from  the  Uintah  Indians  of  Utah  a  lease  of  land  for  mining  pur¬ 
poses;  the  mining  rights,  when  obtained,  to  be  capitalized  at  $3,000,000. 
He  writes  letters  to  his  associates — apparently  from  the  office  and  on  the 
official  letter-heads  of  the  Assistant  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs — and 
from  time  to  time  reports  progress  in  the  effort  that  he  is  making  to  procure 
the  desired  lease.  He  more  than  intimates  that  he  has  a  very  strong  secret 
‘.pull’  in  Washington;  says  that  he  is  ‘hitting  the  high  places’;  boasts  that 
a  certain  Dr.  McDonald — a  post  surgeon  on  the  Uintah  Reservation,  who 
has  been  opposing  their  plans — will  shortly  ‘  be  given  a  change  of  base  for  his 
health’  (that  is,  will  be  removed,  through  the  efficacy  of  his — Harper’s — 

‘  pull  ’) ;  says  that  ‘  it  may  be  advisable  to  lay  low  until  he  [the  doctor]  gets 
his  orders  and  has  gone  away’;  cautions  his  associates  that  ‘we  must  protect 
our  good  official  friends,’  and  ‘must  not  get  any  officer  in  a  hole  by  anything 
we  may  say  or  do’;  declares  that  ‘“the  powers  that  be”  have  impressed 
the  Indians  with  the  advantages  to  them  from  leasing’ ;  arranges  for  a  secret 
telegraphic  cipher  and  a  fictitious  name,  or  the  name  of  another  person,  to 
be  signed  to  his  own  telegrams,  ‘  to  preclude  the  possibility  of  its  leaking  out 
that  I  am  associated  in  the  matter’;  and,  finally,  says  to  his  correspondent 
‘Jim,’  ‘“The  powers  that  be”  are  very  anxious  to  have  all  correspondence 
destroyed.  You  will  at  least  be  very  careful  of  same.’ 

“These  letters  have  no  direct  bearing,  of  course,  upon  the  Standing  Rock 
case;  but  if  they  are  genuine,  and  if  the  statements  made  in  them  are  true, 
they  would  seem  to  show  that  the  Indian  Office,  in  the  matter  of  negotiating 
leases  of  Indian  lands,  is  not  always  actuated  wholly  and  exclusively  by  a 
desire  to  promote  the  Indians’  welfare.” 

Commenting  on  this  editorially,  the  “Outlook”  said: 

“We  have  finished  one  century  of  dishonor  in  our  dealings  with  the 
Indians;  under  no  circumstances  can  we  afford  to  begin  a  new  century  of 
dishonor.  Much  of  our  misdoing  in  the  past  came  from  our  failure  to  under¬ 
stand  the  people  with  whom  we  were  dealing  and  the  provision  which  ought 
to  be  made  for  them.  The  ignorance  of  the  people  of  the  United  States 
was  taken  advantage  of  by  land-grabbers,  speculators,  and  traders  in  and 
out  of  official  positions,  and  wrongs  were  perpetrated  which  were  possible 
only  because  public  attention  had  not  been  focused  on  the  Indian  question. 
In  the  future,  however,  there  will  be  no  such  excuse  if  these  wrongs  are  re- 


13 


peated.  The  question  has  been  discussed,  the  situation  illuminated,  the 
rights  of  the  Indians  determined,  the  duties  of  the  Government  ascertained. 
The  story  which  Mr.  Kennan  tells  reads  like  a  chapter  taken  from  the  history 
of  our  dealings  with  the  Indians  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago:  violation  of 
agreements,  disregard  of  promises,  invasion  of  rights,  inefficiency — to  put 
it  mildly — of  those  who  were  officially  charged  with  the  duty  of  protecting 
the  Indians,  encroachments  by  moneyed  interests  or  by  aggressive  and 
selfish  individuals  upon  Indian  territory.” 

This  brought  forth  a  statement  from  Commissioner  Jones,  which  was 
published  in  the  “  Outlook,”  April  19,  1902.  In  the  judgment  of  the  editors, 
however,  the  answer  was  “neither  adequate  nor  conclusive.  .  .  .  The 

history  of  the  relations  of  the  United  States  Government  with  the  Indians 
has  been  such  that  when  an  accusation  is  made  against  the  Government 
in  Indian  matters  its  innocence  cannot  be  taken  for  granted;  it  must  prove 
its  integrity.  Mr.  Kennan’s  detailed  charges  cannot  be  ignored  or  evaded, 
and,  in  our  opinion,  Commissioner  Jones’s  own  statement  of  the  case  makes 
a  thorough  investigation  necessary.” 

The  Commissioner’s  side  is  herewith  presented: 


“COMMISSIONER  JONES’S  STATEMENT. 

“To  the  Editors  of  the  'Outlook' : 

‘  ‘  My  attention  has  recently  been  attracted  to  an  article  in  the  ‘  Outlook  ’ 
of  March  29th,  under  the  title  ‘  Have  Reservation  Indians  any  Vested  Rights?’ 
The  article  relates  mainly  to  the  action  of  this  office  in  leasing  the  surplus 
lands  of  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation.  There  is  in  the  article  such  a  spirit 
of  unfair  criticism,  officious  complaint,  garbled  statement  of  facts,  and  such 
a  broad  insinuation  of  sinister  motives  on  my  part  as  to  induce  me  to  take 
some  notice  of  it,  lest  my  silence  might  be  construed  as  a  confession  of  the 
correctness  of  the  position  assumed. 

“The  writer  evidently  did  not  know  of  or  has  ignored  the  fact  that  for 
years  preceding  the  time  when  steps  were  taken  by  the  office  to  lease  the 
surplus  land,  many  thousand  head  of  outside  cattle  were  pastured  on  the 
Standing  Rock  and  other  Sioux  reservations,  from  which  the  Indians,  as  a 
tribe,  derived  no  benefit  whatever. 

“Three  systems  of  pasturage  were  in  vogue.  First,  the  squaw-men  and 
mixed-bloods  grazed  their  own  cattle  on  the  reservation  in  large  numbers; 
second,  these  same  enterprising  classes  held  many  thousand  head  of  outside 
stock  on  the  reservation,  the  owners  paying  them  directly  for  pasturage 
privileges;  third,  parties  living  in  that  part  of  the  State  permitted  their  stock 
to  trespass  upon  the  reservation,  paying  no  one  for  the  privilege.  This 
latter  class  were  freebooters  pure  and  simple.  Under  these  three  systems 
more  than  50,000  head  of  stock  have  been  yearly  pastured  upon  the  adjoin¬ 
ing  Cheyenne  River  Reservation  alone,  during  recent  years.  Many  of  the 
squaw-men  and  mixed-bloods  have  become  comparatively  rich  by  taking 
in  the  stock  of  outside  parties  and  by  the  paturage  of  excessive  numbers 
of  their  own.  It  was  manifestly  unfair  and  unjust  to  the  tribe,  as  a  body, 
to  permit  a  few  intermarried  whites  and  progressive  mixed-bloods  to  monopo¬ 
lize  practically  all  the  common  lands  of  the  reservation  to  their  own  ad¬ 
vantage  and  profit,  whereas,  if  the  lands  were  leased  for  the  benefit  of  the 
tribe,  all  would  share  alike  in  the  financial  results  derived. 

“The  office  had  two  purposes  in  view  in  leasing  these  lands:  First,  the 
overthrow  of  the  illegal  and  unauthorized  systems  that  had  theretofore  pre¬ 
vailed;  and  second,  the  raising  of  revenue  for  the  benefit  of  the  tribe  as  a 
whole. 

“Realizing  that  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation  is  essentially  a  grazing 
country,  and  in  order  to  encourage  all  the  Indians  to  become  stock  owners, 
a  clause  was  inserted  in  the  proposed  leases  making  ample  provision  for  the 
pasturage  of  a  reasonable  number  of  stock  for  each  family.  This  clause  pro¬ 
vides  that  each  Indian  family  residing  within  the  leased  district  shall  be 
permitted  to  hold  therein,  free  of  rent,  cattle  and  horses  which  they  actually 
own  to  an  extent  not  exceeding  one  hundred  head.  This  clause  applies  to 


14 


all  families  having  rights  upon  the  reservation — to  the  families  of  squaw- 
men,  mixed-bloods,  and  full-bloods  alike. 

“The  writer  of  the  article  appears  to  be  greatly  exercised  over  the  ap¬ 
parent  ‘change  of  heart’  by  this  office  between  May  and  October,  1901,  rela¬ 
tive  to  the  issuance  of  grazing  permits.  During  the  summer  such  informa¬ 
tion  reached  the  office,  through  the  reports  of  its  inspectors,  as  to  induce 
it  to  inaugurate  a  system  which  would  compel  all  parties  that  were  there 
grazing  stock  on  the  Sioux  Reservations  to  pay  the  Indian  Agents  one  dollar 
per  head  per  annum.  This  has  been  designated  the  ‘permit  system’  of 
pasturage.  It  did  not  contemplate  securing  the  consent  of  the  tribe  for  its 
inauguration,  neither  did  it  require  such  action.  There  was  no  proposition 
nor  intention  to  invite  cattlemen  to  bring  in  additional  numbers  of  cattle 
for  grazing  purposes;  it  simply  provided  that  a  tax  of  one  dollar  per  head, 
paid  for  grazing  stock  already  on  the  reservation,  should  be  collected  by  the 
Indian  Agents  for  the  benefit  of  the  tribe,  instead  of  being  paid  to  enter¬ 
prising  squaw-men  and  mixed-bloods  for  their  individual  profit.  As  an 
imperative  corollary  to  this  it  was  necessary  to  inaugurate  the  permit  system 
for  the  pasturage  of  resident  stock,  in  excess  of  a  hundred  head  for  each  family; 
otherwise  the  entire  body  of  stock  on  the  reservation  might  be  claimed  by 
the  squaw-men  and  enterprising  mixed-bloods  (whether  they  were  bona 
fide  owners  or  not)  and  thus  escape  pasturage  taxation — at  least  for  the 
benefit  of  the  tribe,  and  not  to  a  few  intermarried  whites  and  mixed-bloods. 
The  end  sought  justifies  the  means,  and  the  same  action  will  be  taken  with 
reference  to  other  reservations  whenever  it  is  ascertained  that  the  same 
conditions  exist. 

“From  the  general  tone  of  the  article,  one  not  familiar  with  the  facts 
would  infer  that  every  Indian  on  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation  was  op¬ 
posed  to  the  action  of  the  office  in  leasing  the  lands.  Such  is  not  the  case, 
however.  There  is  no  regularly  constituted  council  of  the  Standing  Rock 
Sioux,  so  that  it  was  necessary  to  call  a  general  council  of  all  the  adult  male 
members  of  the  tribe  in  order  to  secure  tribal  consent  to  the  leasing.  The 
action  of  the  Indians  in  the  matter  is  therefore  embodied  in  the  ‘general 
council  proceedings’  of  December  26,  1901,  which  is  as  follows: 

“‘We,  the  undersigned,  Indians  of  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation, 
North  Dakota,  over  eighteen  years  of  age,  hereby  consent  to  the  leasing  for 
a  period  not  to  exceed  five  years,  for  the  purpose  of  grazing  cattle  thereon, 
at  a  rate  of  not  less  than  one  ($1)  dollar  per  head  per  annum  for  each  and 
every  head  of  cattle  so  introduced  and  grazed  upon  said  reservation,  the 
unoccupied  portions  of  said  Standing  Rock  Reservation,  the  consent  hereby 
given  to  be  subject  in  each  and  every  instance  to  the  following  conditions: 

“‘The  tract  of  land  assigned  -under  each  permit,  contract,  or  lease  must 
be  properly  fenced,  the  cost  of  such  fencing  to  be  paid  from  the  rental  which 
may  be  due  for  the  first  year.  At  the  expiration  of  such  permit,  contract, 
or  lease,  said  fencing  shall  be  and  remain  the  property  of  the  Indians  of  this 
reservation,  and  during  the  term  that  cattle  are  so  held  upon  this  reservation 
such  fences  must  be  kept  in  a  proper  state  of  repair  at  the  expense  of  the 
owner  of  the  stock. 

All  persons  so  introducing  and  grazing  stock  will  be  required  to  exercise 
all  possible  care  and  diligence  to  prevent  depredations  by  their  cattle  upon 
the  leasehold  of  other  stockmen  or  upon  lands  occupied  by  Indians  of  this 
reservation;  and  in  the  event  of  the  appearance  of  any  contagious  disease 
among  their  herds,  every  possible  step  must  be  taken  to  prevent  the  spread 
of  and  to  stamp  out  such  disease.’ 

“[Here  follow  the  signatures  of  771  Indians.] 

“‘I  do  hereby  certify  on  honor  that  I  have  explained  the  nature  of  the 
above  agreement  to  the  Indians  whose  names  are  hereto  appended,  and  am 
satisfied  that  they  fully  understand  the  same. 

“‘Joseph  Archambault, 

‘  ‘  ‘  Interpreter. 

We  certify  on  honor  that  we  witnessed  the  signature  of  each  and  every 
Indian  whose  name  is  hereto  appended,  and  that  they  signed  of  their  own 
free  will  and  accord. 

“‘Witnesses:  Louis  Killed, 

“‘Charles  Ramsey.’ 


15 


“The  proceedings  are  signed  by  771  male  adults  of  the  tribe  out  of  a 
total  of  983.  This  is  as  nearly  unanimous  as  could  be  reasonably  expected 
in  a  council  of  this  kind — considerably  more  than  a  two-thirds  majority  of 
the  male  adults.  It  is  therefore  not  true  that  anything  like  a  majority  of  the 
tribe  are  opposed  to  the  leasing.  The  opposition  comes  from  a  comparatively 
few  intermarried  whites  and  mixed-bloods  whose  financial  interests  are  in¬ 
volved.  They  see  in  the  inauguration  of  the  leasing  system  the  overthrow 
of  the  abuses  which  they  have  heretofore  practised  greatly  to  their  own 
financial  advantage.  The  remainder  of  the  tribes  are  not  only  willing  that 
their  surplus  lands  shall  be  leased,  but  are  anxious  that  such  action  shall 
be  taken. 

“It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  ‘Association  of  Returned  Students,’  the 
most  intelligent  and  progressive  element  of  this  tribe,  are  heartily  in  favor 
of  leasing  these  lands. 

“Again,  throughout  the  article,  the  council  proceedings  giving  the  tribal 
consent  to  the  leasing  are  spoken  of  as  an  ‘agreement,’  it  being  broadly  in¬ 
timated  that  it  was  an  agreement  between  this  Department  and  the  Indians. 
It  is  then  pointed  out  that  the  terms  of  the  leases  as  drawn  do  not  agree  with 
the  tribal  consent,  intending  to  convey  the  impression  that  the  Department 
had  entered  into  an  agreement  with  the  Indians  relative  to  leasing  their  lands 
and  had  then  broken  faith  with  them. 

“Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  The  council  proceedings 
are  in  no  sense  an  agreement — unless  it  be  an  agreement  among  the  Indians 
themselves,  to  which  this  Department  is  in  no  degree  a  party.  The  law 
provides  that  surplus  tribal  lands  ‘  may  be  leased  by  authority  of  the  council 
speaking  for  such  Indians  ...  in  such  quantities  and  upon  such  terms 
and  conditions  as  the  Agent  in  charge  of  such  reservation  may  recommend.’ 
The  law,  therefore,  does  not  contemplate  that  ‘the  council  speaking  for  such 
Indians’  shall  do  more  than  give  its  consent  to  the  leasing;  the  quantity  of 
land  to  be  leased,  and  the  terms  and  conditions,  are  to  be  left  to  the  Agent 
in  charge,  subject,  of  course,  to  the  directions  of  the  Department. 

“  It  is  pointed  out  that  the  council  proceedings  authorized  leasing  at  not 
less  than  one  dollar  per  head,  while  the  advertisements  invited  bids  for  the 
grazing  privileges  by  the  acre.  Even  if  it  should  be  admitted,  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  that  the  Indians  might  dictate  the  conditions  upon  which  the 
lands  might  be  leased,  this  discrepancy,  if  such  it  can  be  called,  is  more  ap¬ 
parent  than  real  when  all  the  facts  are  known.  The  leases  provide  that  the 
lessees  shall  not  hold  to  exceed  an  average  of  one  head  of  stock  to  each  forty 
acres;  this  at  the  rate  per  acre  specified  makes  his  grazing  privileges  cost  him 
a  little  more  than  one  dollar  and  twenty  cents  per  head.  It  serves  the 
double  purpose  of  preventing  overstocking  the  ranges,  and  at  the  same  time 
determines  what  it  shall  cost  the  lessee  to  graze  each  head  of  stock.  f 

“It  is  also  alleged  that  the  Indians  gave  their  consent  to  the  leasing  of 
the  ‘unoccupied’  portion  of  the  reservation,  while  one  of  the  leases  includes 
some  of  the  best  and  most  thickly  settled  parts  of  the  reservation,  where  the 
Indians  have  their  homes,  their  little  gardens,  their  winter-hay  fields,  and 
their  cattle. 

“This  on  its  face  seems  to  be  a  serious  charge.  In  the  first  place,  it  was 
not  proposed  to  lease  the  eastern  portion  of  the  reservation,  containing  over 
one-half  its  entire  area.  Nearly  nine-tenths  of  all  the  Indians  reside  upon 
this  portion,  east  of  the  line  of  the  grazing  districts.  The  Walker  lease 
exempts  and  excludes  one  township  of  land  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bull  Head 
Station,  which  includes  the  only  thickly  settled  part  of  the  reservation  in 
the  leased  portion.  A  very  conservative  estimate  places  the  number  in¬ 
cluded  in  the  leased  district  at  not  more  than  seventy  families.  An  inspector 
of  this  Department,  who  was  Agent  at  Standing  Rock  from  1881  to  1895, 
and  who  has  frequently  visited  the  reservation  since,  states  that  in  |his  judg¬ 
ment  not  more  than  fifty  families  reside  upon  the  portion  it  is  proposed  to 
lease;  but,  making  allowance  for  misinformation  and  for  changed  conditions 
since  he  left,  there  are  assuredly  not  more  than  seventy  families.  Again, 
the  lease  form  in  use  by  this  Department  makes  ample  provision  for  pro¬ 
tecting  each  and  every  Indian  in  his  individual  holdings,  whether  the  same 
be  farms,  gardens,  or  allotments.  The  clause  referred  to  provides  that  all 
allotments  of  land  in  severalty  and  all  farms,  gardens,  and  other  improved 
holdings  of  individual  Indians  shall  at  all  times  be  free  from  damage  or  inter- 


16 


ference  by  the  stock  or  employees  of  the  lessee.  The  office  has  always  found 
this  clause  to  afford  ample  protection  to  the  individual  Indians,  even  on 
reservations  where  there  are  actual  allotments  and  where  farming  operations 
are  extensively  carried  on.  It  has  proven  effective  largely  from  the  fact 
that  all  lessees  of  tribal  lands  are  required  to  give  bond,  with  two  or  more 
good  and  sufficient  sureties,  in  an  amount  equal  to  one  year’s  annual  rental, 
conditioned  upon  the  faithful  performance  of  the  terms  of  the  lease.  It 
thus  transpires  that  the  families  living  in  the  leased  area  will  have  ample 
protection  against  the  stock  and  employees  of  the  lessees — even  far  more  so 
than  they  had  prior  to  the  inauguration  of  the  leasing  system,  for  it  must  be  re¬ 
membered  that  for  the  past  several  years  many  thousands  of  cattle  have  been 
grazed  upon  the  reservation,  whose  owners  were  not  under  bond  and  were 
responsible  to  no  one  for  any  damage  or  injury  their  stock  might  occasion. 
The  leasing  system  is  intended  and  will  remedy  these  existing  evils.  The 
out-boundaries  of  the  grazing  districts  will  be  fenced  so  as  to  prevent  trespass¬ 
ing;  the  lessees  are  required  to  protect  the  individual  holdings  of  the  Indians; 
they  are  required  to  give  good  and  sufficient  bond  conditioned  upon  the 
payment  of  the  rents  and  the  faithful  performance  of  all  the  terms  of  the 
lease;  they  cannot  overstock  the  ranges,  as  they  are  limited  as  to  the  number 
of  cattle  they  can  bring  upon  the  lands  at  any  one  time.  In  short,  it  is  the 
substitution  of  a  legal  system  under  the  control  of  the  Department  for  a 
system  of  internal  monopoly  and  external  freebooting.  Aside  from  this, 
and  to  obviate  every  possible  objection,  arrangements  have  been  made  to 
furnish  the  individual  Indians  living  within  the  leased  area  with  wire  for 
fencing  their  homes  and  hay-fields  when  they  so  desire,  and  when  it  appears 
that  any  Indian  is  unable  for  good  reason  to  build  the  fences  himself,  the 
Department  proposes  to  have  the  work  done  for  him. 

“My  motives  are  also  impugned  in  the  short  time  given  to  the  advertise¬ 
ments  inviting  proposals.  From  the  article  it  would  be  inferred  that  it  is 
obligatory  upon  the  office  to  give  notice  a  long  time  prior  to  the  acceptance 
of  bids.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  no  notice  whatever  is  required.  It  was  com¬ 
petent  for  the  office  to  solicit  and  accept  informal  bids  if  it  felt  so  disposed, 
without  giving  any  public  notice.  Such  action  has  been  taken  in  a  number 
of  cases,  but  in  the  interest  of  the  Indians,  and  to  silence  criticism,  public 
notices  of  the  letting  were  published  in  four  leading  stock  journals,  the  first 
publication  being  made  seventeen  days  before  the  day  of  the  letting.  Not 
only  this,  two  hundred  and  fifty  posters  soliciting  proposals  were  sent  to  all 
the  leading  stockmen  whose  addresses  were  known  to  the  office.  The  suf¬ 
ficiency  of  the  advertisement  is  attested  by  the  number  of  separate  bids 
received,  which  was  six.  In  but  very  few  instances  have  more  than  six  bids 
been  received  upon  any  one  body  of  land  in  the  ten  years’  experience  of  the 
office  in  soliciting  bids  by  public  advertisements.  In  hundreds  of  cases 
there  has  been  but  a  single  bid  upon  a  given  grazing  district,  which  the  office 
was  forced  to  accept  or  readvertise.  Any  advertisement,  therefore,  which  re¬ 
sults  in  securing  six  competitive  bids  is  amply  sufficient.  This,  taken  in 
connection  with  the  fact  that  it  was  not  imperative  upon  this  office  to  make 
any  advertisement  whatever,  should  silence  criticism  on  this  point. 

“As  to  the  so-called  pool  referred  to  in  the  article,  in  which  it  is  alleged  I 
was  interested,  I  will  state  that  the  two  highest  bids  upon  this  land  were 
coupled  with  conditions  wholly  inconsistent  with  the  terms  of  the  advertise¬ 
ment  soliciting  proposals.  Neither  could  have  been  accepted  even  if  there 
had  been  no  other  bids.  The  next  highest  bids — those  of  Lemmon  and 
Walker — were  a  ‘tie.’  Both  had  complied  with  all  the  provisions  of  the 
advertisement  and  had  deposited  checks  for  at  least  five  per  centum  of  the 
entire  amount  of  the  bid.  One  had  no  advantage  over  the  other  before  the 
office.  Under  such  circumstances  it  would  have  been  difficult  or  embarrass¬ 
ing  to  have  decided  between  them.  Both  were  present  in  person  at  the  time 
of  the  opening  of  bids,  and  decision  could  only  have  been  made  between 
them  by  lottery  or  chance.  They  obviated  this  difficulty  themselves  by 
mutually  agreeing  to  a  division  of  the  tract,  Mr.  Lemmon  to  take  the  western 
and  northwestern  portion  of  the  reservation  and  Mr.  Walker  the  central  and 
southern  portion.  This  was  entirely  satisfactory  to  the  office,  especially  as 
it  would  result  in  giving  the  Indians  fifty-four  miles  of  additional  fence. 
In  no  other  sense  and  in  no  other  way,  so  far  as  known  to  this  office,  was 
there  an  agreement  or  understanding  between  the  bidders  or  local  stockmen. 


17 


“It  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  make  any  reply  to  that  portion  of  the 
article  relative  to  the  decisions  of  the  courts  as. to  the  nature  or  extent  of  the 
vested  rights  of  Indians  in  and  to  their  reservation  lands.  Personally,  I 
have  experienced  no  ‘change  of  heart’  upon  the  subject.  I  have  always 
contended  that  the  consent  of  the  Indians  was  necessary  in  order  to  legally 
lease  their  lands  and  as  to  its  final  disposition.  I  have  not  experienced  a 
change  of  heart  on  this  subject,  but  I  insist  that  the  consent  of  the  Standing 
Rock  Indians  was  legally  and  properly  secured  in  this  case,  and  is  now  on 
file  in  the  office. 

“In  answer  to  the  claim  of  the  author  of  the  article  that  the  United  States 
has  taken  9,000,000  acres  of  land  from  the  Sioux,  and  has  given  them  in 
return  a  gold  brick,  made  by  thinly  gilding  a  metal  called  ‘zinc  deceit,’  a 
brief  statement  of  what  the  Sioux  tribe  has  received  under  their  treaties  may 
not  be  inappropriate. 

“Under  the  treaties  of  1868  and  1877,  the  Government  has  expended 
for  the  benefit  of  this  tribe  over  $38,000,000 — a  sum  equal  to  $70  annually 
for  every  man,  woman,  and  child.  Again,  under  the  treaty  of  1889,  they 
received  as  an  advance  payment  on  their  ceded  lands  $3,000,000,  which  has 
been  drawing  interest  in  the  Treasury  at  the  rate  of  five  per  cent,  per  annum; 
the  interest  on  this  payment  is  spent  annually  for  their  benefit,  and  alone 
amounts  to  date  to  $1,800,000. 

“In  addition  to  this  vast  sum  of  money,  they  have  received  25,000  head 
of  cattle,  which  have  been  issued  to  them  per  capita,  and  the  Government 
issues  to  each  allottee,  when  he  accepts  his  allotment,  two  cows,  two  mares, 
one  set  of  harness,  one  plow,  one  wagon,  one  harrow,  one  hoe,  one  ox,  one 
pitchfork,  and  $50  in  money.  The  total  value  of  the  deliveries  so  far  made 
amounts  to  $1,149,022;  it  is  estimated  that  it  will  take  at  least  $1,500,000 
more  to  fulfil  this  part  of  the  treaty  stipulation.  So  that  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  Sioux  nation  has  received  from  the  Government  for  their  benefit  the 
enormous  sum  of  $48,000,000  besides  retaining  in  their  several  reservations  [?] 
acres  of  land.  From  the  foregoing  it  will  be  seen  that  the  ‘gold  brick’  did 
not  contain  much  ‘zinc  deceit,’  but  rather  that  they  received  a  veritable 
gold-mine,  that  has  been  worked  assiduously  in  their  interest  for  many  years; 
and  I  submit  that  it  is  high  time  that  they  consent  to  the  use,  for  their  own 
benefit,  of  some  of  the  unoccupied  millions  of  acres  of  grazing  land  in  the 
remote  parts  of  their  reservation,  and  so  relieve  the  Government  of  some  of 
this  heavy  annual  burden. 

‘  ‘  The  gratuitous  and  slanderous  insinuation  contained  in  the  article  that 
my  action  was  prompted  in  the  matter  by  sinister  and  interested  motives, 
I  will  not  dignify  with  a  denial. 

“In  conclusion,  I  will  state  that  the  action  taken  by  the  office  was  the 
result  of  a  conference  with  my  superior  officers,  and  meets  with  their  entire 
approval. 

“  In  justice  and  fairness  to  myself,  it  is  hoped  that  you  will  give  this  reply 
in  its  entirety  the  same  publicity  that  you  did  the  article  to  which  it  refers. 

“Very  respectfully, 

“W.  A.  Jones,  Commissioner. 

“Department  of  the  Interior,  Office  of  Indian  Affairs, 
Washington,  April  12,  1Q02." 

On  May  3,  1902,  the  “Outlook”  published  a  convincing  reply  from  Mr. 
Kennan  to  the  Commissioner’s  defense.  We  will  only  preface  it  with  the 
statement  that  the  leasing  proposition  was  favored  by  the  “Association  of 
Returned  Students  ”  is  true  only  to  the  same  extent  that  the  Indians  approved 
the  scheme — namely,  with  the  understanding  that  only  unused  land  was 
to  be  leased,  and  that  it  was  to  be  designated  by  the  committee  of  the  tribe 
appointed  for  that  purpose.  Mr.  Kennan’s  rejoinder  follows: 

“HAVE  THE  STANDING  ROCK  INDIANS  BEEN  FAIRLY  TREATED? 

“A  Reply  to  Commissioner  Jones’s  Letter. 

“By  George  Kennan. 

“I  have  read  attentively  the  reply  of  the  Indian  Commissioner  to  my 
recently  published  article.  I  shall  refrain  from  expressing  any  opinion  with 


18 


regard  to  its  merits  as  a  defense,  because  I  do  not  wish  to  be  discourteous; 
but  I  will  take  up,  in  their  order,  the  points  that  Mr.  Jones  attempts  to  make, 
and  briefly  consider  them. 

“  i.  He  defends  his  illegal  ‘permit-system’  order  of  October  9,  1901,  by 
saying  that  the  reservation  was  overrun  by  trespassing  cattle,  and  that  it 
was  better,  in  the  interest  of  the  Indians,  to  collect  a  dollar  a  head  from  the 
owners  of  such  cattle,  under  the  permit  system,  than  to  let  the  ‘freebooters’ 
get  their  pasturage  for  nothing.  I  am  not  prepared  to  admit  that  illegal 
action  on  the  part  of  the  trespassers  justified  the  Department  in  condoning 
and  sanctioning  the  illegality  by  accepting  payment  from  the  wrong-doers; 
but  it  is  not  necessary  to  go  into  the  merits  of  that  question,  inasmuch  as 
there  is  very  grave  doubt  as  to  the  existence  of  the  alleged  evil.  The  Indians 
themselves  have  never  complained  of  ‘freebooters’;  I  have  not  been  able  to 
find  a  single  reference  to  trespassing  cattle  in  the  reports  of  the  Standing 
Rock  agents  to  the  Indian  Office;  trustworthy  persons  who  have  just  come 
from  the  reservation  assure  me  that  there  are  very  few,  if  any,  trespassing 
cattle  within  its  limits.  Agent  Bingenheimer  said,  less  than  a  year  ago, 

‘  You  can  ride  across  the  country  for  days  and  never  see  a  critter’  (Sen.  Doc. 
212,  p.  91) ;  and  Mr.  Jones  himself  declared,  on  the  23d  of  last  January,  before 
the  Senate  Committee,  that  ‘there  is  a  lot  of  idle  land  there  which  is  used 
neither  by  the  Indians  nor  by  anybody  else'  (Sen.  Doc.  215,  p.  67).  I  find 
complaints  of  trespassing  cattle  in  the  reports  of  agents  on  other  Sioux  reser¬ 
vations — particularly  Cheyenne  River  and  Rosebud — but  not  one  from 
Standing  Rock.  If  the  cattle  were  there,  why  did  not  the  Indian  Office  have 
them  removed  ?  Removal,  apparently,  would  not  have  been  difficult.  Agent 
McChesney  reports  to  the  Commissioner  that  his  farmers,  with  the  aid  of  a 
few  Indian  police,  removed  8000  trespassing  cattle  from  the  Rosebud  Reser¬ 
vation  in  1899.  (Rep.  of  the  Indian  Commissioner  for  1899,  p.  341.)  There 
are  nearly  4000  Indians  on  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation,  and  they  own 
10,000  horses.  Is  it  conceivable  that  they  could  not  have  driven  off  the  tres¬ 
passing  cattle  if  there  were  any  there  ?  And  is  it  probable  that  they  would 
have  submitted  to  such  a  trespass  without  protest  if  it  had  any  real  exis¬ 
tence  ? 

“The  Commissioner  assured  the  Senate  Committee  that  there  have  been 
for  years,  and  are  now,  more  trespassing  cattle  on  the  Standing  Rock  Reser¬ 
vation  than  it  is  proposed  to  put  on  under  the  leases.  (Sen.  Doc.  212,  p.  18.) 
As  Lemmon  and  Walker,  under  the  terms  of  the  leases,  are  to  have  a  right 
to  put  one  head  of  stock  on  every  forty  acres,  or  30,000  head  on  the  1,200,- 
000  acres  of  leased  territory  (Sen.  Doc.  212,  p.  46),  the  Commissioner’s  state¬ 
ment  to  the  Senate  Committee  is  equivalent  to  an  assertion  that  there  are 
more  than  30,000  trespassing  cattle  on  the  reservation  now.  How  does  he 
propose  to  reconcile  this  assertion  with  his  other  statement  that  ‘there  is 
a  lot  of  land  there  which  is  used  neither  by  the  Indians  nor  by  anybody  else,’ 
and  with  Agent  Bingenheimer’s  assertion  that  ‘you  can  ride  across  the 
country  for  days  and  never  see  a  critter  ’  ? 

“As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation  is  not  overrun  by 
trespassing  cattle  now,  and  it  never  has  been.  This  defense  of  the  illegal 
‘permit-system  order,’  therefore,  is  a  breastwork  of  straw. 

“2.  In  a  letter  from  New  York  to  Assistant  Commissioner  Tonner,  written 
on  the  15th  of  May,  1901,  Mr.  Jones  expressly  said  that  he  could  not  inaugu¬ 
rate  the  permit  system  without  the  Indians’  consent,  and  directed  the  Assist¬ 
ant  Commissioner  to  ascertain  from  Agent  Bingenheimer,  by  telegraph, 
whether  the  Indians  had  not  ‘  experienced  a  change  of  heart  ’  in  the  matter. 
If  they  had — that  is,  if  they  would  consent — he  ‘  would  issue  permits  at  once  ’ 
(Sen.  Doc.  212,  p.  63).  He  now  says,  in  reply  to  my  article,  that  the  Indian 
Office  ‘  did  not  contemplate  securing  the  consent  of  the  tribe  ’  for  the  inaugu¬ 
ration  of  the  permit  system,  ‘neither  did  it  require  such  action.’  In  May 
last  he  said  he  must  have  the  Indians’  consent,  and  now  he  says  that  he  didn’t 
need  it  and  had  no  idea  of  asking  for  it.  Which  statement  is  true?  It  is 
hardly  possible  that  both  can  be  true. 

“But  there  is  another  point  of  that  permit-system  order  upon  which 
Mr.  Jones  contradicts  himself.  The  last  sentence  of  the  order  reads  as  fol¬ 
lows  :  ‘  Due  care  should  be  taken  by  you  ’  (Agent  Bingenheimer)  ‘  not  to  admit 
such  number  of  outside  stock  as  to  overgraze  the  lands.’  If  this  means  any¬ 
thing,  it  certainly  means  that  the  Commissioner  expected  the  order  to  result 


19 


in  the  bringing  in  of  ‘outside  stock.’  He  now  says,  however,  in  reply  to  my 
article,  that  ‘there  was  no  proposition  nor  intention  to  invite  cattlemen  to 
bring  in  additional  numbers  of  cattle  for  grazing  purposes;  it’  (the  order) 
'simply  provided  that  a  tax  of  $i  per  head  should  be  paid  for  grazing  ’  (tres¬ 
passing)  ‘stock  already  on  the  reservation.’  The  order  says  outside  cattle 
are  to  be  brought  in ;  but  his  reply  states  that  there  was  no  intention  to  bring 
outside  cattle  in.  Which  of  these  statements  is  true? 

“  If  there  were  no  trespassing  cattle  on  the  reservation,  the  permit-system 
order  which  frightened  and  coerced  the  Indians  into  an  agreement  to  lease 
cannot  be  justified  or  excused  on  that  ground.  If  there  was  no  consent  on 
the  part  of  the  Indians,  it  was  in  violation  of  a  treaty  obligation. 

“The  only  other  defense  set  up  by  the  Commissioner  is  that  ‘the  end 
sought  justifies  the  means.’  Morally  and  legally,  that  is  a  very  shaky  propo¬ 
sition  in  any  circumstances,  and  it  is  far  from  constituting  a  good  defense 
when  the  ‘  end  sought  ’  was  the  acquirement,  in  the  interest  of  a  cattle  syndi¬ 
cate,  of  lands  that  the  Indians  had  refused  to  give  up,  and  the  ‘means’  were 
a  broken  promise  and  a  violation  of  a  guaranteed  right.  The  testimony 
given  before  the  Senate  Committee  shows  conclusively  that  the  consent  of 
the  Indians  to  lease  their  lands  was  obtained  from  them  by  means  of  the 
coercive  influence  of  this  illegal  permit-system  order.  They  consented  to 
lease,  not  because  they  wanted  to  do  so,  nor  because  they  were  willing  to  do 
so;  but  because  they  were,  as  they  said,  ‘under  pressure,’  and  could  escape 
The  permit  system  in  no  other  way.  Metaphorically  speaking,  their  consent 
was  obtained  with  a  club.  (Sen.  Doc.  212,  pp.  51-53.) 

“3.  The  next  point  of  the  Commissioner’s  reply  raises  the  following  ques¬ 
tion:  When  the  Indians  gave  a  qualified  consent  to  lease — that  is,  a  consent 
to  which  certain  stipulations  and  conditions  were  attached — had  the  Depart¬ 
ment  discretionary  power  to  ignore  all  the  conditions  and  still  hold  the  In¬ 
dians  to  the  consent  ? 

“The  Commissioner  says  that  ‘the  council  proceedings’  (the  conditions 
of  the  consent)  ‘were  in  no  sense  an  agreement,  unless  it  be  an  agreement 
among  the  Indians  themselves,  to  which  the  Department  is  in  no  sense  a 
party.’  As  a  legal  proposition,  and  in  a  very  strict  sense,  that  may  be  true; 
but  in  the  circumstances  of  this  case  it  amounts  to  an  assertion  that  the 
Indians  have  no  right  or  power  to  attach  any  stipulation  whatever  to  their 
consent  to  lease  lands.  They  may  not  say  that  they  will  lease  only  un¬ 
occupied  lands;  nor  that  they  will  lease  only  one-third  of  their  reservation; 
nor  that  they  will  lease  only  a  certain  specified  township.  If  they  once  con¬ 
sent  to  lease  a  single  acre  as  pasturage  for  one  small  foreign  calf,  the  Depart¬ 
ment,  in  its  discretion,  may  take  away  from  them  a  whole  million  acres, 
throw  that  million-acre  tract  open  to ‘foreign  cattlemen,  and  then  say  to 
them  (the  dissatisfied  Indians),  ‘Your  council  proceedings,  by  which  you 
attempted  to  limit  the  amount  of  land  you  would  lease,  have  no  binding 
force  as  against  the  Department.  It  is  true  that  we  can’t  take  a  single  acre 
of  your  reservation  without  the  “authority  of  your  council  speaking  for 
you’”  (Act  of  Congress  of  February  28,  1891),  ‘but  if  you  once  consent  to 
lease  that  single  acre,  we  can  throw  open  to  cattlemen  as  much  of  your  terri¬ 
tory  as  we  think  best — occupied  or  unoccupied — and  upon  such  terms  as 
we  choose.’ 

“That  may  be  good  law,  but  it  strikes  me  as  a  very  dubious  proposition 
from  an  ethical  point  of  view.  The  Act  of  Congress  which  authorizes  the 
leasing  of  Indian  lands  reads  as  follows: 

“‘Where  lands  are  occupied  by  Indians  who  have  bought  and  paid  for 
the  same,  and  which  lands  are  not  needed  for  farming  or  agricultural  pur¬ 
poses,  and  are  not  desired  for  individual  allotments,  the  same  may  be  leased 
by  authority  of  the  council  speaking  for  such  Indians,  for  a  period  not  to 
exceed  five  years  for  grazing  or  ten  years  for  mining  purposes,  in  such  quan¬ 
tities  and  upon  such  terms  and  conditions  as  the  agent  in  charge  of  such 
reservation  may  recommend,  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  Secretary  of  the 
Interior.’  (Act  of  Congress  of  February  28,  1891.) 

"I  do  not  know  whether  this  law  has  ever  been  judicially  construed  or 
not ;  but  its  intent  would  seem  to  be  to  give  the  Department  a  certain  super¬ 
visory  control  over  the  decisions  of  the  Indian  councils  in  the  matter  of  land, 
with  a  view  to  restraining  such  councils  when  they  show  a  disposition  to  lease 
their  lands  injudiciously,  in  too  large  quantities,  or  at  a  foolishly  low  price. 


20 


Its  object  was  to  protect  an  inexperienced  and  naturally  improvident  people 
from  exploitation  by  the  whites.  Congress,  apparently,  intended  to  say: 
‘  You  may  lease,  for  your  own  benefit,  such  parts  of  your  lands  as  you  do  not 
need;  but  you  must  act  in  such  matters  through  your  council,  and  its  de¬ 
cisions,  as  to  the  quantity  of  land  to  be  leased  and  the  terms  of  payment 
therefor,  are  subject  to  Departmental  supervision  and  control.’  It  seems 
to  me  extremely  improbable  that  Congress  intended  to  give  the  Interior 
Department  power  to  lease  two  million  acres  of  land  that  the  Indians  had 
‘bought  and  paid  for,’  when  the  council  had  agreed  to  lease  only  one-third 
of  that  amount,  and  to  turn  cattlemen  and  their  cattle  into  the  occupied 
parts  of  the  reservation  when  the  council  had  consented  to  lease  only  the 
unoccupied  parts. 

“4.  But  there  is  another  aspect  of  the  case  that  should  have  attention 
in  connection  with  the  Commissioner’s  plea  that  the  conditions  of  the  Indians 
have  no  binding  force  on  the  Department.  After  being  frightened  by  the 
threat  of  the  permit  system,  the  Indians  were  finally  induced  to  consent  to 
a  lease  by  certain  promises  and  representations  made  to  them  by  the  Depart¬ 
ment’s  agent.  Mr.  Bingenheimer  admitted,  before  the  Senate  Committee, 
that  the  Indians  agreed  to  lease  only  their  unoccupied  lands;  that  he  ‘did 
not  propose  to  lease  anything  they  wanted  to  use  ’ ;  that  he  distinctly  prom¬ 
ised  them  that  the  unoccupied  land  should  be  determined  and  its  boundary 
fixed  and  staked  out  by  a  commission  to  be  composed  of  three  representative 
Indian  chiefs  and  himself;  and  that  this  promise  or  agreement  had  not  been 
fulfilled.  (Sen.  Doc.  212,  pp.  84,  85,  89,  and  90.)  If  Mr.  Bingenheimer  did 
not  report  these  promises  and  representations  to  the  Indian  Office,  and  did 
not  inform  the  Commissioner  that  the  Indians  were  relying  on  them,  he 
dealt  unfairly,  not  only  with  the  Indians,  but  with  the  Department  whose 
agent  he  was.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  did  report  them,  and  they  were 
found  objectionable,  the  Department  should  have  disavowed  them  and 
given  the  Indians  a  chance  to  recall  their  consent.  It  may  have  been  legal, 
but  it  certainly  was  not  fair,  to  hold  the  Indians  to  their  consent  and  at  the 
same  time  repudiate  the  Bingenheimer  promises  by  means  of  which  that  con¬ 
sent  was  obtained.  This  was  evidently  the  view  of  Senator  Jones  (of  Arkan¬ 
sas)  ,  who  said  before  the  Senate  Committee :  ‘  The  law  requires  that  the  con¬ 
sent  of  these  Indians  shall  be  had  with  regard  to  whatever  shall  be  done 
with  this  land;  and  the  statement  was  made  by  the  Agent  that  the  Indians, 
in  their  council,  provided  that  a  committee  should  be  appointed  to  designate 
what  were  the  unoccupied  lands;  and  there  can  nothing  else  be  done  under 
the  law  in  regard  to  this  agreement.  .  .  .’  The  committee  was  to  point 

out  to  the  Agent  what  was  unoccupied  land.  ‘  When  you  go  out  ’  (addressing 
Commissioner  Jones) ,  ‘  you  point  out-  a  lot  of  land  they  have  not  designated, 
and  you  say  if  there  are  some  who  do  not  want  to  stay  in  it,  they  may  fence 
off  their  land.’  (Sen.  Doc.  212,  pp.  89  and  87.) 

“This  was  evidently  the  view  also  of  Senator  Stewart,  the  Chairman  of 
the  Senate  Committee,  who  said:  ‘  The  Indians  were  to  lease  unoccupied  land 
and  it  was  their  understanding  that  there  was  to  be  a  committee  of  three 
appointed  to  designate  them.  That  should  be  carried  out.’ 

“5.  The  question  that  now  presents  itself  is,  ‘Why  were  the  promises 
made  by  Agent  Bingenheimer  not  fulfilled,  and  why  did  he  not  go  out  with 
the  Indian  committee  last  fall  to  fix  and  stake  out  the  boundary  of  the  “un¬ 
occupied  land”  as  he  agreed?’  The  Commissioner’s  reply  throws  no  light 
upon  this  question,  but  I  can  answer  it,  if  he  does  not.  The  boundary¬ 
lines  of  the  territory  to  be  leased  had  been  fixed  in  the  Indian  Office,  and  the 
leases  had  been  drawn  and  printed  before  the  Indians  gave  any  consent  what¬ 
ever  to  lease  any  part  of  their  lands.  The  Commissioner  felt  so  sure,  ap¬ 
parently,  that  the  threat  of  the  permit  system  would  bring  the  Indians  to 
terms  that  he  decided  what  part  of  their  reservation  he  would  give  to  the 
cattlemen,  fixed  the  boundary,  drew  up  the  lease  or  leases,  and  then  ordered 
Agent  Bingenheimer  to  call  a  council  and  get  the  Indians’  consent  to  a  cut- 
and-dried  scheme.  This,  at  least,  is  the  explanation  given  by  Mr.  Bingen¬ 
heimer  himself,  who  now  declares  that  his  promises  to  the  Indians  were 
made  in  good  faith,  but  that  he  could  not  fulfil  them  because  the  Commis¬ 
sioner  took  the  whole  matter  out  of  his  hands.  With  reference  to  his  appear¬ 
ance  before  the  Senate  Committee  in  Washington  last  February,  Mr.  Bin¬ 
genheimer  now  says:  ‘  I  could  only  say  what  the  Commissioner  would  let  me 


21 


say,  and  only  know  what  he  allowed  me  to  know.  If  I  had  been  free  to  speak, 
I  could  have  told  a  whole  lot.’  The  fact  that  the  interesting  and  valuable 
information  which  Mr.  Bingenheimer  evidently  has  with  regard  to  this  leasing 
was  not  drawn  out  of  him  by  the  Senate  Committee  on  Indian  Affairs  is  only 
another  proof  that,  as  I  said  in  my  first  article,  the  proceedings  of  that  Com¬ 
mittee  were  ‘so  unsystematic,  inconsecutive,  and  inconclusive  as  to  leave 
almost  everything  in  doubt.’ 

“Senator  Platt  objects  to  my  statement  of  this  case.  He  is  a  man  of 
unimpeachable  integrity  and  honesty  of  purpose,  and  he  evidently  believes 
that  I  am  misled,  if  not  misleading;  but  if  he  had  co-operated  with  Senator 
Jones,  and  had  asked  Agent  Bingenheimer  a  few  searching  questions,  he 
might  have  brought  out  the  ‘whole  lot’  that  the  Agent  says  he  could  have 
told,  and  might  thus  have  furthered  the  cause  of  justice  and  national  honor. 
It  was  perfectly  evident  that  the  Indians  were  not  getting  ‘a  square  deal’ 
at  the  hands  of  Mr.  Jones,  Mr.  Bingenheimer,  or  both,  and  it  was  the  duty 
of  the  Senate  Committee  to  ascertain  why. 

“The  reason  for  the  failure  to  keep  faith  with  the  Indians  has  been  given 
by  Agent  Bingenheimer  since  my  first  article  was  written.  On  the  2 2d  of 
March  Commissioner  Jones  telegraphed  the  Agent  to  let  Mr.  Lemmon  pro¬ 
ceed  with  the  building  of  his  fence,  on  a  line  that  would  inclose  thirty  or 
forty  Indian  houses  and  a  considerable  part  of  the  Indians’  Grand  River 
lands.  As  soon  as  the  work  began,  the  Indians  called  a  council  to  protest 
against  the  fence-building,  and  asked  Mr.  Bingenheimer  to  be  present  and 
explain  why  he  had  not  kept  his  agreement  to  go  with  them  and  run  the 
line  that  this  fence  should  follow.  The  council  was  held  on  the  12th  of  this 
month — the  very  date  of  Mr.  Jones’s  reply  to  my  article — and  was  attended 
by  all  the  leading  chiefs  and  most  of  the  male  Indians  in  the  central  part  of 
the  reservation.  .  .  .* 

“I  invite  Senator  Platt’s  attention  to  the  proceedings  of  this  Indian 
council,  held  only  two  weeks  ago,  and  would  like  respectfully  to  ask  whether 
in  his  judgment  they  are  the  reflection  of  a  square,  honest  deal  on  the  part 
of  the  officers  of  the  United  States?  These  Indians  are  not  loafers  or  idlers. 
According  to  the  report  of  Commissioner  Jones  for  1900,  they  raised  that 
year  3491  bushels  of  oats,  barley,  and  rye;  19,971  bushels  of  corn;  10,016 
bushels  of  vegetables,  and  21,799  tons  of  hay.  They  cut  2376  cords  of  wood, 
and  transported  from  distant  railway  stations  2,332,000  pounds  of  freight. 
They  owned  at  that  time  10,082  horses  and  12,213  cattle.  (Report  of  the 
Indian  Commissioner  for  1900,  pp.  668-699.) 

“They  seem  to  have  done  their  level  best  to  earn  their  own  living  on 
a  semi-barren,  semi-arid  reservation  where  there  is  little  work  to  be  had; 
where  agricultural  crops  fail  two  years  out  of  three  on  account  of  drought; 
and  where  cattle-raising  is  almost  the  only  possible  industry.  Instead  of 
recognizing  their  efforts  to  do  what  they  can  while  they  are  accumulating 
enough  cattle  for  self-support,  the  Indian  Office  cuts  down  their  rations  fifty 
per  cent.;  gives  them  notice  of  another  impending  cut  of  fifty  per  cent.; 
threatens  them  with  the  permit  system  in  order  to  force  them  to  consent 
to  a  lease;  ignores  the  terms  and  conditions  of  the  consent  thus  obtained; 
turns  cattlemen  and  half-wild  Texan  cattle  into  the  occupied  parts  of  their 
reservation;  and  finally,  when  they  protest,  tells  them,  through  its  Agent, 
that  they  will  have  to  starve  if  they  do  not  submit,  and  that  they  had  better 
keep  quiet  and  sell  fence-posts  to  the  lessees  at  six  and  a  quarter  cents  apiece ! 

“6.  The  Commissioner  says,  in  his  reply  to  my  article,  that  the  Indians 
are  ‘willing  and  anxious’  to  lease  their  lands,  and  that  all  the  opposition 
there  is  comes  from  a  few  squaw-men  and  half-breeds,  ‘who  see  in  the  in¬ 
auguration  of  the  leasing  system  the  overthrow  of  the  abuses  which  they 
have  heretofore  practised.’  I  think  the  council  proceedings  above  set  forth 
are  a  sufficient  answer  to  this  statement.  If  the  Indians  are  ‘willing  and 
anxious’  to  lease,  they  have  a  queer  way  of  showing  it! 

“7.  The  Commissioner  says:  ‘The  Walker  lease  exempts  and  excludes 
one  township  of  land  in  the  neighborhood  of  Bull  Head  Station  which  in¬ 
cludes  the  only  thickly  settled  part  of  the  reservation  in  the  leased  portion. 
A  very  conservative  estimate  places  the  number  included  in  the  leased  dis¬ 
trict  at  not  more  than  seventy  families.’ 

“Since  the  beginning  of  this  controversy  between  the  Indians  and  the 

*  The  proceedings  of  this  council  are  published  elsewhere  in  this  report. 


22 


Commissioner — viz.,  in  the  early  part  of  March — the  Rev.  T.  L.  Riggs, 
who  has  been  long  and  favorably  known  in  connection  with  mission  work 
among  the  Sioux,  made  a  careful  investigation  of  the  Standing  Rock  leases, 
at  the  request  of  the  Indian  Rights  Association,  and  sent  to  that  Association 
a  full  report  upon  the  subject.  Concerning  the  number  of  Indian  families 
included  within  the  leased  district,  he  says  .  .  .* 

“  If  a  region  that  is  inhabited  by  876  Indians,  with  11,000  head  of  stock, 
is  not  an  ‘occupied  part  of  the  reservation,’  I  should  be  glad  to  know  what 
the  Commissioner’s  definition  of  ‘occupied’  is.  At  the  rate  of  one  head  of 
stock  to  every  forty  acres  (the  proportion  of  cattle  to  land  adopted  by  the 
Indian  Office) ,  these  1 1,000  horses  and  cattle  would  occupy  a  range  of  440,000 
acres — almost  exactly  the  amount  of  land  leased  in  this  very  region  to  Mr. 
Walker. 

“In  view  of  this  and  many  other  discrepancies  between  the  statements 
of  Commissioner  Jones  on  one  side  and  the  statements  of  the  Indians  and 
disinterested  investigators  on  the  other,  there  would  seem  to  be  urgent  and 
pressing  need  for  a  thorough  and  impartial  investigation  of  the  whole  subject 
by  some  person  or  persons  not  connected  with  the  Indian  Office. 

“Washington,  D.  C.” 

INDIAN  CONTRACT  LABOR. 

In  addition  to  the  objectionable  leasing  project,  the  Commissioner  of 
Indian  Affairs  has  formed  a  plan  to  which  we  desire  to  call  attention,  by 
which  male  adult  Indians  are  to  be  hired  out  as  contract  laborers  at  $1.25 
a  day  to  employers  wherever  work  can  be  secured  for  them.  The  first  place 
selected  to  try  this  novel  experiment  is  the  Standing  Rock  Reservation. 
We  regard  this  project  with  disfavor  for  the  following  reasons:  First,  it  will 
remove  the  Indians  from  their  families,  with  almost  certain  moral  loss  to 
them,  and  will  further  take  them  away  from  their  farms  which  they  should 
be  encouraged  to  cultivate  and  their  homes  that  they  should  become  attached 
to;  second,  it  will  make  it  easy  for  designing  persons  to  covet  and  become 
possessed  of  the  Indian  lands  from  which  the  owners  have  been  removed; 
third,  all  such  contract  projects  are  subject  to  grave  abuse;  they  offer  facili¬ 
ties  for  defrauding  laborers  who  are  so  employed.  The  Indians  would  offer 
special  temptation  to  persons  disposed  to  imposition  in  view  of  the  unsatis¬ 
factory  character  of  Indian  agents,  who  would  superintend  the  working 
of  the  system,  and  because  of  the  ignorance  of  the  Indians  of  practical  affairs. 

In  pursuance  of  instructions  received  from  the  Commissioner  of  Indian 
Affairs,  Agent  Bingenheimer  distributed  a  number  of  copies  of  a  printed 
circular  reading  as  follows: 

“INDIAN  LABOR. 

“Standing  Rock  Agency,  N.  D., 

“  March  28,  1902. 

“  Notice  is  hereby  given  that  there  are  on  Standing  Rock  Agency,  N.  D., 
five  hundred  and  thirty-four  (534)  able-bodied  Indians  who  are  desirous 
of  obtaining  employment  off  the  reservation  in  caring  for  stock,  farming, 
as  day  laborers  on  railroads,  or  other  labor  of  this  class. 

“Correspondence  is  invited  from  farmers,  railroads,  employment  agencies, 
or  any  persons  who  may  desire  to  secure  such  laborers,  stating  the  approx¬ 
imate  number  it  is  desired  to  secure,  and  what  wages  you  are  willing  to  pay 
(with  or  without  board)  for  the  same. 

“The  cost  of  transportation  to  and  from  the  places  of  employment  will 
not  be  borne  by  the  Government,  but  must  be  borne  by  the  employers  or 
by  the  Indians  themselves. 

“Address  all  communications  to 

“George  H.  Bingenheimer, 

“  United  States  Indian  Agent. 

“Standing  Rock  Agency,  Ft.  Yates,  N.  D.” 

*See  page  5. 


23 


A  correspondent  whom  we  have  known  for  many  years,  residing  near  the 
reservation,  who  is  unusually  intelligent  and  accurate  as  to  opinions  ex¬ 
pressed,  writes  regarding  this  matter: 

“Some  proposals  for  bids  for  the  Indians  to  labor  on  railroads,  etc.,  are 
being  scattered.  They  say  that  there  are  534  Indians,  able-bodied,  wanting 
such  work.  I  do  not  believe  that  there  are  34  such  men  who  have  not  help¬ 
less  families  and  cattle  and  horses.  These  Indians  are  not  ditch-diggers; 
they  are  nearly  all  farmers  or  stock-raisers.  Not  one  of  the  534  has  been 
asked  whether  he  wants  such  work,  and  not  one  has  passed  a  medical  ex¬ 
amination.  Shall  they  be  banished?  Russia’s  rules  won’t  work  with  people 
born  in  free  America.  I  do  not  believe  the  men  will  go.  They  may  starve 
them  or  shoot  them,  but  I  cannot  believe  they  can  enslave  them.” 

A  summary  of  the  Commissioner’s  instructions  to  the  Sioux  Indian  Agents 
where  the  plan  is  to  be  followed  is  given  in  a  Washington  letter  to  the  Phila¬ 
delphia  “Public  Ledger.”  It  is  as  follows: 

“  .  .  .  It  is  known  that  the  Indians  do  not  want  to  go  away  from 

home  in  this  way,  but  have  been  encouraged  by  the  policy  of  the  Department 
heretofore  to  expect  that  they  will  get  work  at  home,  and  so  be  able  to  build 
up  their  small  farms  and  homes  and  be  with  their  families. 

“The  object  of  the  Commissioner  is  in  part  to  cut  down  the  rations  allowed 
to  adults.  A  few  weeks  ago  this  policy  was  outlined  in  a  long  letter  from 
the  Indian  Office  to  the  leading  Sioux  agencies,  suggesting  the  reduction  of 
the  outlay  for  subsistence  and  clothing,  and  the  use  of  the  money  saved  in 
this  way  in  employing  the  Indians  on  the  reservation  as  far  as  possible,  at 
$1.25  a  day  of  eight  hours,  this  employment  to  be  in  lieu  of  all  supplies.  It 
is  proposed  that  this  employment  should  be  performed  under  the  supervision 
of  the  agent  or  some  of  his  deputies  on  whatever  work  is  required  to  be  done 
for  the  good  of  the  community.  On  all  the  reservations  there  is  more  or  less 
work  to  be  done  building  roads,  dams,  or  reservoirs  for  storing  water  for  stock 
or  irrigation;  putting  up  fences,  cultivating  land,  cutting  hay  and  doing  a 
great  Variety  of  similar  work.  This  proposed  change  was  intended  to  be 
worked  out  during  the  next  fiscal  year,  1903.  But  agents  were  urged  to 
recommend  a  reduction  of  25  per  cent.,  if  possible,  in  flour,  beef,  and  other 
supplies  due,  but  not  yet  furnished  this  year,  with  a  view  to  using  this  money 
thus  saved  in  hiring  Indians  on  public  works  after  April  1st.  All  Indians 
that  could  not  be  employed  on  the  reservations  were  to  be  sent  off  wherever 
employment  could  be  had.  To  work  out  this  self-supporting  method  of 
dealing  with  the  Indians,  the  agents  were  asked  to  furnish  the  Department 
with  information  as  to  the  number  of  aged,  sick,  infirm,  and  helpless,  and 
the  number  of  able-bodied  Indians.  It  was  also  desired  to  know  how  many 
Indians  could  be  employed  on  the  reservations  and  how  many  would  have 
to  be  sent  off. 

“It  was  announced  in  this  letter  that  the  recommendations  for  the  esti¬ 
mates  and  recommendations  for  supply  for  the  next  fiscal  year  would  be 
reduced  according  to  the  statements  made  by  the  agents,  and  the  money 
saved  to  be  applicable  for  labor.  Among  the  instructions  given  in  this  general 
letter  was  one  in  relation  to  self-supporting  Indians.  For  all  such  the  agents 
were  told  to  withhold  rations  and  clothing,  and  if  anything  was  furnished 
them  to  require  full  value  in  cash  or  labor.  The  agents  were  also  told  to 
strike  from  the  ration  roll  all  the  names  of  able-bodied  Indians  as  soon  as 
they  were  furnished  employment,  and  not  to  put  them  back  on  the  ration 
roll  as  long  as  they  had  work. 

‘“If  employment  is  offered,’  said  Commissioner  Jones,  ‘  to  any  able-bodied 
Indian  who  is  not  already  self-supporting,  and  who  shall  refuse  such  employ¬ 
ment,  he  shall  also  be  stricken  from  the  ration  roll,  and  shall  not  be  replaced 
thereon,  but  may  be  furnished  with  employment  whenever  he  applies  for  it. 
Instead  of  an  Indian  agency  being  a  center  for  the  gratuitous  distribution  of 
supplies,  it  should  be  an  employment  bureau.’ 

“The  Commissioner  also  advises  that  Indian  girls  who  have  returned  from 
school  should  be  placed  in  good,  respectable  white  families  to  work.  This, 
however,  is  not  to  be  proposed  in  the  public  advertisements,  but  is  to  be 
accomplished  by  private  correspondence.  The  Commissioner  also  says  that 


24 


he  favors  the  employment  of  Indians  by  companies  or  individuals  rather  than 
by  the  Government,  and  his  preference  is  for  railroads  and  cattlemen. 

“The  fact  that  the  Commissioner  has  been  very  strenuous  in  putting 
through  leases  of  the  Standing  Rock  grazing  lands  gives  color  to  the  suspicion 
that  a  part  of  his  purpose  in  farming  out  the  able-bodied  Indian  labor  of  that 
reservation  is  to  remove  from  the  reservation  a  large  number  of  Indians 
who  might  otherwise  remain  there  and  engage  in  stock-raising.  Under  the 
power  given  the  agent  an  Indian  who  has  made  a  little  start  in  stock-raising 
can  be  very  easily  forced  to  consent  to  be  sent  away,  as  a  refusal  on  his  part 
would  cost  him  the  forfeiture  of  his  rations,  and  he  would  regard  it  wiser  to 
get  $1.25  a  day  than  to  let  his  family  starve.  .  .  .” 

GENERAL  CONDITIONS  AMONG  THE  STANDING  ROCK  INDIANS. 

Mr.  Riggs  submitted  a  separate  report  with  regard  to  the  welfare  in  gen¬ 
eral  of  the  Standing  Rock  Indians,  which  is,  in  our  opinion,  of  very  great 
value : 

“  REPORT  ON  LAND  ALLOTMENTS  AND  OTHER  MATTERS. 

“By  Rev.  T.  S.  Riggs. 

“In  reporting  upon  the  question  of  allotments  and  other  related  subjects 
for  the  Indians  occupying  reservations  in  grazing  regions,  I  would  say  that 
I  not  only  give  the  results  of  my  own  studies,  but  also  the  thought  of  many 
others  on  the  field  who  have  for  years  given  more  or  less  attention  to  these 
matters. 

“  Paternalism. 

“No  one  who  has  observed  the  drift  of  management  in  recent  years  has 
failed  to  see  in  it  a  kind  of  paternalism  both  demoralizing  and  infamous. 
The  Indian  as  a  ward  of  the  Government  is  ordered  out,  not  taught;  he  is  de¬ 
prived  of  former  personal  liberties,  but  not  educated  to  the  use  of  the  freedom 
of  the  citizen.  Schools  are  established  and  he  is  ordered  to  send  his  children, 
or  punished  if  he  does  not.  Force  is  used  where  instruction  is  needed.  A 
far  too  common  threat  of  the  guard-house  for  any  and  all  errors  and  offenses 
is  the  usual  method  of  control.  Agents  and  sub-agents,  as  well  as  inspectors, 
resort  to  this.  Then,  too,  the  Indian  is  deprived  of  harmless  personal  liber¬ 
ties,  privileges,  and  rights  which  should  rather  be  encouraged  and  forwarded 
as  a  means  of  development.  They  are  in  many  cases  not  allowed  to  go  off 
the  reservation  in  search  of  work  or  for  the  disposition  of  the  product  of  work 
at  home.  The  ‘pass’  system  is  enforced  and  every  man  who  has  a  horse,  of 
his  own  raising,  to  sell  must  first  have  a  permit  to  seek  a  market.  On  some 
agencies  a  permit  is  necessary  if  an  Indian  would  make  sale  of  this  horse  to 
another  Indian  living  in  the.  same  village.  The  Indian  service  is  fast  running 
to  the  extreme  in  absurdities  of  control,  the  effect  of  which  not  only  retards 
individual  and  race  development,  but  fills  the  better-minded  and  more  in¬ 
dependent  Indians  with  contempt  and  the  feeling  that  former  days  were 
better  than  the  present,  and  savage  life  preferable  to  so-called  civilization. 
Doubtless  there  is  some  excuse  for  this  condition,  arising  out  of  the  necessity 
for  guidance  and  protection.  I  insist,  however,  that  it  is  guidance  and 
protection  that  are  needed  and  not  brute  •  control  and  suppression. 

“  Rations. 

“An  effective  instrument  in  these  later  days  for  enforcing  the  lawless 
as  well  as  lawful  orders  has  been  the  ration  system.  ‘  If  you  do  this  I’ll  take 
away  your  ration-ticket,’  and  ‘if  you  do  not  do  this  I’ll  take  your  rations 
from  you,’  are  arguments  that  have  been  all-powerful  and  the  use  of  which 
often  has  been  abused.  On  this  account,  if  for  no  other,  it  will  be  a  benefit 
to  the  Indian  to  have  the  system  abolished.  That  there  are  difficulties  in 
the  way  of  dropping  the  ration  system  no  one  denies.  The  old  people  and 
the  sick  will  have  to  be  provided  for,  but  there  really  is  no  more  reason  why 
an  able-bodied  Indian  should  not  work  for  the  food  he  eats  than  that  a  white 
man  or  black  man  should  be  exempt.  The  day  for  sickly  philanthropy  that 
blinks  this  fact  of  nature  has  gone  by.  The  principle  of  ‘root,  hog,  or  die’ 
is  sound;  and  the  only  difficulty  lies  in  the  method  of  enforcing  the  adoption 
of  this  with  our  Indians.  And  here  is  where  in  our  dealings  we  have  been 
wickedly  slow  and  criminally  oblivious.  Plans  should  have  been  made  years. 


25 


ago  and  intelligently  worked  out  by  which  the  ration-receiving  Indians 
should  now  be  entirely  self-supporting  and  the  ration  system  have  quietly 
disappeared.  As  it  is  now  there  will  be  something  of  a  shock  and  there  will 
be  unavoidable  hardship  and  suffering.  Nevertheless,  it  is  the  opinion  of 
men  who  are  in  position  to  know,  that  the  sooner  rations  can  be  stopped, 
the  better  it  will  be  for  the  Indians  themselves. 

“Indians  to  Work. 

“I  fully  approve  of  the  proposition  that  our  Indians  go  to  work,  and 
also  of  the  purpose  of  the  Indian  Office  to  furnish  work  for  Indians.  If  it 
be  nothing  better  than  digging  a  hole  in  the  ground  on  Monday  and  filling 
up  this  hole  on  Tuesday,  it  will  be  the  best  move  the  Indian  Office  has  made 
in  many  a  year.  I  asked  an  agency  farmer,  a  few  days  ago,  what  he  thought 
of  the  plan.  He  said,  ‘  It  is  all  right.’  ‘  How  many  of  your  Indians  can  stand 
eight  hours  of  work  a  day  and  keep  it  up?’  was  my  next  question.  ‘Not 
many  of  them,  at  first,’  he  replied.  ‘How  long  will  it  be,  in  your  opinion, 
before  the  plan  may  be  expected  to  be  to  any  considerable  extent  in  success¬ 
ful  working  order?  ’  was  my  last  question,  to  which  he  replied  that  it  would 
‘require  a  full  year  in  some  neighborhoods,  two  years  with  most,  and  longer 
than  that  at  other  places.’  I  give  this,  as  it  expresses  my  own  thought  in 
the  matter,  and  as  a  warning  that  we  do  not  look  for  entirely  satisfactory 
results  too  soon.  Doubtless,  were  there  only  first-class  men  in  charge  of 
the  detail  of  the  working  out  of  this  plan,  as  well  as  in  all  superior  positions, 
we  might  reasonably  expect  earlier  results.  The  great  difficulty  of  this  plan 
of  giving  employment  to  Indians  lies  in  the  character  of  the  men  who  will 
have  charge  of  it — the  section  bosses  and  sub-agents  who  will  come  into  direct 
contact  with  the  Indian  workman. 

“Land  Allotments. 

“There  seems  to  be  more  or  less  well-founded  fear  of  the  allotment  of 
land  in  severalty.  A  few  years  ago  it  was  supposed  that  land  ownership 
would  settle  the  entire  Indian  question.  This  is  not  so  confidently  asserted 
now,  for  already  have  there  been  too  many  glaring  failures.  And  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  in  a  grazing  region  one  hundred  and  sixty  acres  of  land  will  not 
support  a  stockman.  That  our  western  Indians  are  to  become  tillers  of  the 
soil  is  not  seriously  entertained.  The  nature  of  the  region  which  they  occupy 
is  opposed  to  such.  At  first  large  sums  of  money  were  expended  by  the 
Government  for  the  purchase  of  seeds  and  agricultural  implements;  these 
implements  were  never  used  sufficiently  to  offset  interest  on  expenditure. 
Then  the  Indian  Office  went  to  the  other  extreme  and  no  seeds  were  issued 
and  no  encouragement  given  to  even  garden  farming.  Stock-raising  was 
talked  and  spasmodic  efforts  made  in  that  direction.  On  a  few  agencies 
the  raising  of  cattle  was  carefully  looked  after  by  the  authorities;  on  others, 
no  attention  was  given.  The  result  is  what  might  be  expected.  On  Stand¬ 
ing  Rock  Reservation  the  Indians  now  own  about  fourteen  thousand  head 
of  cattle  and  these  are  well  distributed.  On  the  Cheyenne  River  there  are 
but  few  Indian  owners  of  herds  of  cattle.  There  has  been  no  uniformity 
in  method  and  no  continuity  of  management  in  this  matter.  As  in  earlier 
days  farmers  were  appointed  who  had  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  or  fitness 
for  giving  instruction  in  agriculture,  so  now  the  management  of  the  stock 
interests  of  a  reservation  has  been  haphazard  and  viciously  ignorant. 

“  But  to  come  back  to  the  matter  of  allotments.  It  is  proposed  to  give 
the  Indian  larger  allotments  of  land  classified  as  grazing  lands.  His  home¬ 
stead  and  his  grazing  allotment  are  all  of  a  single  class.  He  holds  the  one 
the  same  way  that  he  holds  the  other.  This  does  not  tend  to  give  him  any 
true  conception  of  the  dignity  of  land-owning.  His  possessions  are  too  large, 
in  fact,  for  this,  while  far  too  limited  to  correspond  with  his  inbred  concep¬ 
tion  of  his  lordly  ownership  of  former  days.  That  he  needs  this  large  hold¬ 
ing  if  he  becomes  a  successful  stock-raiser  is  quite  true.  It  is,  however, 
likely  to  become  a  real  source  of  embarrassment  to  him  in  the  future. 

“My  plan,  if  I  might  state  it  here,  would  be  to  allot  a  homestead  of  reason¬ 
able  extent — say  160  acres — to  every  head  of  a  family,  and  proportionate 
amounts  to  the  children  and  others  of  the  family — make  this  allotment  in 
trust  for  a  number  of  years ;  at  the  end  of  which  term  title  in  fee  would  stand 
to  the  allottee.  Then  I  would  have  a  grazing  allotment  made  on  an  entirely 


26 


different  basis,  giving  each  head  of  the  family  the  use  of  a  definite  tract  of 
land,  to  be  located  as  carefully  and  exactly  as  the  homestead,  but  held  by 
the  Government  for  the  use  of  that  individual.  In  fine,  I  would  first  allot 
homesteads  to  all  and  then  have  as  much  of  the  remainder  of  the  reserva¬ 
tion  as  would  be  necessary,  broken  up  into  individual  family  reservations. 
The  details  of  such  a  plan  could  be  easily  worked  out  and  there  is  no  apparent 
objection  to  its  successful  issue. 

“Such  a  plan  would  remove  the  necessity  of  and  could  readily  make 
impossible  any  attempt  to  lease  reservation  lands  to  outside  cattlemen.  It 
is  a  fact  that  Indians,  at  first,  look  with  but  little  favor  upon  the  cutting  up 
of  their  reservations  into  individual  holdings.  They  accept  the  necessity 
of  this  with  misgivings  and  slowly.  It  is  equally  a  fact,  however,  that  the 
reservations  must  go,  and  I  submit  this  plan,  outlined  most  briefly,  as  a  pos¬ 
sible  solution  of  some  of  the  many  difficulties  to  be  overcome  in  making  the 
change. 

“Oahe,  S.  D.,  March  17 ,  1902 .” 


Since  the  foregoing  was  placed  in  the  printer’s  hands  we  have  learned 
that  the  Honorable  Commissioner  of  Indian  Affairs  attended  a  council  of 
the  Indians  held  at  Standing  Rock  Agency,  on  April  30,  1902. 

The  Commissioner  is  reported  to  have  stated  to  the  Indians  that  the 
Indian  Office  had  not  been  fully  informed  as  to  their  condition  and  needs, 
and  that  if  he  had  been  better  acquainted  with  the  situation  he  would  not 
have  insisted  that  their  lands  be  leased;  that  the  order  to  inaugurate  the 
“permit  system’’  by  January  1,  1902,  was  intended  only  to  regulate  the 
pasturing  of  such  stock  as  was  found  within  the  reservation  limits,  and  not 
intended  as  a  coercive  measure  to  force  the  tribe  to  accept  the  proposition 
to  lease  their  lands,  and  that  no  member  of  the  tribe  having  cattle  outside 
the  Lemmon  lease  would  be  compelled  to  pay  one  dollar  per  head  for  the 
number  in  excess  of  one  hundred. 

He  stated  that  since  the  Lemmon  lease  had  been  executed  it  would  be 
allowed  to  stand  unless  revoked  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States, 
but  that  the  proposed  lease  of  other  of  their  lands  would  not  now  be  thought 
of. 

The  Commissioner  told  the  Indians  that  he  realized  they  could  not  sup¬ 
port  themselves  upon  an  allotment  of  land  such  as  is  provided  for  by  the 
Dawes  Severalty  Act,  which  contemplated  lands  of  greater  productive  power, 
but  that  he  would  urge  that  their  reservation  be  proportioned  equally  among 
them.  This  plan  would  give  to  each  member  of  the  tribe  about  six  hundred 
and  forty  acres. 

The  Commissioner  seems  to  have  been  surprised  to  find  that  these  Indians 
were  not  blanketed  and  painted,  rather  expecting  that  outside  of  the  Re¬ 
turned  Students’  Association  many  of  these  old  customs  prevailed. 

We  believe  the  agitation  that  has  followed  the  unwise  decision  to  lease 
the  lands  at  Standing  Rock,  followed  by  the  protest  of  the  tribe  and  others, 
will  be  of  great  value  to  the  Indians  in  the  future. 

The  Commissioner  left  with  the  council  many  good  words  of  encourage¬ 
ment  and  advice  that  will  be  beneficial  to  the  tribe. 

The  Government  has  now  a  wiser  conception  of  the  condition  and  need 
of  these  Indians,  and  will  no  doubt  apply  this  knowledge  in  the  future  effort 
for  their  advancement. 


As  Corresponding  Secretary  of  the  Association,  I  would  respectfully  urge 
upon  members  of  our  Society  and  other  friends  of  the  Indian  the  importance, 
first,  of  a  careful  consideration  of  the  foregoing  facts,  and,  secondly,  a  re- 


27 


spectful,  yet  vigorous,  agitation,  with  these  facts  as  a  basis  of  action,  through 
the  medium  of  newspaper  articles  and  letters  to  Senators  and  Representa¬ 
tives,  on  the  subject  treated  in  this  pamphlet.  It  is  only  through  such 
agitation  and  through  an  intelligent,  vigorous  public  sentiment  aroused  by 
it  that  the  reforms  which  our  Association  seeks  can  be  accomplished. 

All  rights  of  the  Indian,  whether  in  land,  in  home,  or  in  legal  protection,  will 
inevitably  be  ignored  and  he  thrust  to  one  side,  helpless  and  uncared  for, 
unless  public  sentiment  shall  demand  better  treatment  for  him.  His  rights, 
however,  can  be  protected  if  we  intelligently  exert  ourselves  to  that  end.  We 
need,  not  only  at  Standing  Rock,  a  higher  and  better  type  of  Agent  than  we  find 
in  Agent  Bingenheimer,  but  we  need  that  higher  type  at  all  Indian  agencies. 
Leasing  schemes  and  contract  labor  schemes,  which  have  an  unpleasant  odor 
to  them,  and  which  need  so  much  the  expenditure  of  money  and  time  to 
expose  and  to  thwart,  as  has  been  required  by  our  Association  in  this  in¬ 
stance,  can  best  be  prevented  by  the  simple  expedient  of  extending  civil- 
service  reform  principles  and  civil-service  reform  rules  to  the  post  of  Indian 
Agents.  In  view  of  what  President  Roosevelt  has  done  for  civil-service 
reform  in  the  past,  we  confidently  hope  and  believe  that  he  will  make  this 
extension  of  the  reform  a  signal  feature  of  his  administration,  just  as  in 
President  Harrison’s  administration  we  had  civil-service  reform  inaugurated 
in  the  Indian  service  by  the  extension  of  the  rules  to  the  Indian  school  service, 
and  subsequently  President  Cleveland  made  the  extension  of  the  rules  which 
covered  almost  the  entire  Indian  service,  leaving  only  that  particular  ad¬ 
vance  of  the  reform  to  which  I  have  referred — viz.,  the  inclusion  of  the 
position  of  the  Indian  Agent  under  some  proper  arrangement  of  the  merit 
system.  We  have  had  reason  to  believe  that  this  matter  has  already  re¬ 
ceived  some  measure  of  the  President’s  attention.  The  existence,  however, 
of  an  active,  widespread  public  sentiment  in  favor  of  such  a  plan  for  rescuing 
the  position  of  Indian  Agent  from  the  mire  of  spoils  politics  will  prove  of 
great  assistance  to  such  executive  action. 


H.  W. 


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